Misplaced Trust
by Alison Ocean
Summary: It all starts with a brief, explosive reunion in purgatory. NEW UPDATE FOR CHAPTER 10!
1. Tricks

_Thought you had all the answers,_

_To rest your heart upon_

_But something happens,_

_Don't see it coming, now,_

_You can't stop yourself_

_Now you're out there swimming,_

_In the deep_

_In the deep_

- Bird York, _In the Deep_

* * *

><p>Ichabod came awake slowly, each sense coming alert in an orderly single file. The first awareness to overwhelm him was the incredible ache in his limbs. Every muscle felt wrung out like a dishrag; ever joint ached like the onset of typhus fever. He was lying on his back. His spine and tailbone were wracked with shooting pains, though he had not yet moved. His eyelids scratched across his irises like sandpaper as they rolled in their sockets, as he attempted to get his bearings. Pine needles were beneath him, and the boughs of their brethren trees shrouded his view of anything directly above him. All around him he could hear faint…whispers. Moans. Appeals for salvation and bitter weeping. The clinking of iron and the fracturing of the bone swam around him as if they were the most normal sounds in the world.<p>

Like slippery eels, the appalling sounds ebbed and flowed, slinking through the cracks in the densely-clustered trees. Shakily, apprehensively, warily, he shoved aside the pine boughs and gained his feet. He surveyed where he stood as he brushed the clumps of needles from his long wool coat and beige trousers. In every direction there were small breaks in the trees – each large enough for one, perhaps two people to cross through without brushing against their branches. Beyond each opening, all Ichabod could determine was thick, opaque mist. Something niggled at the back of his mind; he recognized this place…why couldn't he remember…

He turned in a slow, stiff circle, his gaze alighting on each pathway. Each and every direction appeared the same. The horrible noises of death and dying came from all sides, making all paths unanimously unappealing. His booted feet made little noise on the carpet of pine needles as he wandered a few steps to the right, before circling back and heading to the far left. In his gut, Ichabod felt with certainty that it hardly mattered which path he took; all would eventually lead to misery. So there was no point in further delaying the inevitable.

_"…Ichabod…?_"

At the sound of her voice, Ichabod froze in his tracks. His entire frame locked like a startled colt's – in astonishment, he felt his knees begin to tremble. His ears strained and his breath held. Listening…hoping…

_"…Ichabod…?" (Ichabod?...__Ichabod?...__Ichabod?...) _The sound reverberated in the hazy air, the single name overlapping thrice before fading away once more.

Crane spun, now certain that it was Abbie's voice that he'd heard. Her cadence has been soft, familiar, and exquisitely gentle. But it had indeed been hers.

"Lieutenant?" He breathed.

There was a beat of silence. The moans and groans of lost souls resumed their hellish canter as he waited. Then there she was again.

_"I'm here!" (I'm here!...__I'm here!...__I'm here!...) _Her voice was gentle, coaxing – yet insistent.

The sound came from Ichabod's right side. She sounded no more than a few fathoms beyond the trees.  
>"I'm coming!" He shouted as he crashed through the foliage, following her fading echo. "Where are you?"<p>

_"…Here!..."_

Her voice now came from his left. Ichabod redirected his course, hardly caring to slow down. All of his energy was focused on following her voice.

_"I'm right…here!..." _

Her final call faded away just as Ichabod crashed through the final ring of trees. He blinked, awestruck by the change in his surroundings. He was standing in a small, beautiful clearing; a polar opposite of the forest that surrounded him. Buttery sunlight spilled down upon waves of lush green grass, and a colorful, red robin flew past his ear to land on a small shrub. Fluffy, white clouds rolled lazily across an impeccable blue sky above him, and a gentle breeze swayed the patchwork of daisies, poppies, and blue violets that peeked out from the grasses. Ichabod straightened his coat as his eyes soaked in the incredible beauty.

"I'm right here, Ichabod." Abbie stood to the left of him, as calm and casual as if she'd been there all along. Ichabod could hardly believe his eyes. Surrounded by the warm glow of the perfect summer day, her beauty shone like the sun upon him. Her chocolate eyes were large and luminous as they ever were, her skin smooth and supple, and her full lips a beautiful shade of rose. Dark kohl lined her eyes, accenting her thick black lashes. She wore form-fitting black trousers and a low-cut crimson blouse. The shirt was equally form-fitting, accentuating her obvious female attributes. Ichabod would have averted his eyes had he not been so utterly entranced at the sight of her. She cracked a stunning, white-toothed grin as she sauntered towards him. The smug swing of her hips was as pronounced as ever, and she strutted confidently until she was inches away from him.

"You trying to catch flies?" She murmured. Her voice was low, as if they were sharing a juicy secret, just the two of them. This broke Ichabod's reverie, and he graciously shut his mouth.

"I'm, well, um…,"

She giggled at his obvious discomfort. Ichabod's brow creased. He was uncertain how to interpret her giddiness. He let it slide, however, when her expression sobered and she delicately grasped his forearm.

"I'm so happy you're here, Ichabod." Her words came out as a soft, feminine sigh. He had never heard her use such a breathy cadence, nor had she ever looked at him as she did now. Her direct gaze, brimming with unabashed desire, pinned his and rendered him nearly speechless.

"I was beginning to think that you wouldn't come for me." She looked down, her admission making her turn shy. Ichabod frowned. Abbie had never "turned shy" in his presence, that he could recall. And he was admittedly exceptional at recalling such details. However, her simple sentence made his memories of this place immediately come flooding back to him.

"_Yes_." He grasped her fingers where they lay on his arm, comprehension dawning. "This is purgatory. I left you here in order to bring Katrina back to the mortal realm, so that she could invoke a binding spell upon the Horseman of War…" He trailed off as his memories became more fuddled.

"Why can't I remember what happened after?" he murmured to himself. His hand dropped from Abbie's as he tried desperately to recall…

"_Who cares._" Abbie's hold on his arm tightened infinitesimally, bringing Ichabod's gaze back to her. Her tone had been low and serious, almost threatening. But her smile was bright as she gazed up at him.

"I mean," she began again, her tone lighter and more casual. "…it's alright that Katrina's gone. You have me now." She leveled her gaze at him. "I'm the second Witness. I'm destined to be with you for eternity…not her." She sighed, and raised herself up, closer to him. Ichabod couldn't move, much less breathe, as her lips suddenly hovered mere inches from his. He was certain his mouth could have won against a desert for how dry it was.

"Don't you want me, Ichabod?" She breathed intimately, her kitten-like voice all innocence and longing.

Ichabod stared. He had never heard Abbie address him by his Christian name so recurrently. She had only first called him by it when they'd been saying goodbye in purgatory; before he'd left her and taken Katrina to freedom. The memory hit him in full force, ripping his focus away from the beautiful woman in front of him. He remembered, in painful detail, the rigidity of Abbie's posture as he'd embraced her. She had trembled once as he held her, but when she'd pulled away he could read nothing in her countenance but strength and unfailing faith in him. Her eyes, though they shone with moisture, had shed not a single tear. He remembered feeling a burning sense of pride towards her – she'd carried herself not only as a woman of grace and beauty, but as a soldier. Her strength, so brute in one so small, had kept all other emotions in check. The only endearment she'd shared with him was when she had called him "Ichabod", rather than the usual "Crane."

The gravity of the moment had justified her using his first name. It was an endearment, and a weighted one. He never called her by her Christian name either, as the significance of when he'd first called her "Abbie" weighed heavily on them both, and he did not wish to so lightly brush it off.

He refocused on the Abbie before him. As he compared her with the one he remembered leaving here…there was something uncomfortably wanting. Something he could not quite put his finger on. Why was she suddenly so keen on calling him by his first name? And so informally? He drew away from her slightly as an alarm bell, small but growing rapidly louder, sounded in his head. Something glinted in her eyes as she noticed him try to distance himself, and her hand on his arm tightened to hurting. Ichabod's eyes narrowed. He became suddenly aware that the forest around them had gone deathly still and quiet. No birds chirped, no insects moved. The wind had died. Even the sounds of death, so persistent in all parts of purgatory, could no longer be heard.

"Why are you doing that?" Ichabod looked down pointedly to where she clenched his arm.

"Doing what." She murmured from between closed teeth.

"Unhand me."

His tone brooked no argument, but she did not yield.

Her features contorted until they resembled something akin to despondence.

"Why are you being so mean to me?" She wheedled pathetically as she gripped him all the tighter.

"You are not Miss Mills." He growled as he pulled at his arm. His efforts had absolutely no effect on her supernatural grasp.

"Ha!" Abbie – or the thing that resembled her – threw its head back and laughed once at the sky. "Oh, Ichabod…" Her legs snapped and stretched like trees, growing to an impossible height in seconds so that she loomed over him. He looked on in horror. The sky dimmed to black and her silhouette sprouted horns.

"_Gotcha_…" A demonic voice, chilling in its familiarity, snarled down at him.

Ichabod's throat tightened in fear.

"Moloch…"

The demon growled.

"_Katrina cannot protect you_ _now._"

Like trigger, Moloch's voice brought back the memories Ichabod had been grasping at since he'd arrived; everything that had conspired once he and Katrina had escaped purgatory. Every precise detail was clear as crystal in his mind's eye. Henry – his son's – complete betrayal. Katrina's abduction. His entombment.

The realization that his naïveté, his blind desire to have Katrina once again in his arms, had left him trapped in the earth and her a victim to the horseman of death – presumably for all eternity – was unbearable. And worst of all horrible consequences, his actions had resigned Abbie to a very real eternity in purgatory. That was if she managed to survive Moloch for that long.

The memory was so concrete, so agonizing in its detail, that Ichabod felt as if he was going to be physically sick. Moloch laughed once, as if he could sense the incredible depth of his regrets. In one fluid motion, the demon lifted Ichabod by one arm and, like a child's broken toy, hurled him to the other side of the clearing. Ichabod felt the air whistling past at blinding speed, before he crashed into a wall of trees. The numerous branches softened the blow, and the pine needles provided a cushion to land on as he tumbled to the ground, dazed and breathless. He felt the vibrations of Moloch's footsteps beneath him as he drew near.  
>"<em>You. Are. Mine!" <em>The demon let loose an unholy roar as Ichabod scrambled to his feet and took off running.

Tree branches scratched at his clothes and hair like claws as he fought his way through the thick clumps of pines. The undulating carpet of needles made his footing unsteady, and he barely avoided tripping over protruding roots in the near-darkness. The footsteps and growling behind him seemed to draw nearer and nearer with each passing second, and Ichabod knew that he could not outrun the demon – not for long, anyways.

"_Crane!_"

**Hey y'all! Okay, so I wrote this one super-quick, so it's really sloppy, and not fully finished. 1-2 more chapters coming up! Enjoy & review, but be gentle please. I know that it's pretty sloppy. :)**


	2. Reunion

"_Crane!_"

It was Abbie's voice, coming from his right. She sounded…she sounded like _Abbie_. Worried, aggravated, and markedly authoritative. The familiar sound of her anger, as comforting as it was foreboding, soothed his frayed nerves like he'd never imagined something could. Desperately, he veered to the right.

"Lieutenant!"

He saw the broad trunk of a tree appear in front of him, just in time to avoid crashing into it. He wasn't able to clear it completely, however, and his shoulder clipped the rough bark as he passed. He spun out like a vehicle on ice, careening crazily towards the forest floor before he could regain his balance.

Ichabod landed on solid wood. The impact knocked his breath from his lungs, and he took the chance to lie still, gasping, and gaping at his new surroundings. The dark forest had been replaced by a bare hallway. The walls were painted a cheery yellow, with bright blue paneling coming up from the cherry wood floor. How he'd been suddenly transported here – wherever "here" was – he had not the faintest inclination.

The house was silent as the grave. His lips twitched ironically at the thought as he rose to his feet and tread cautiously towards the end of the hall. Scrawled determinedly on the yellow wall, in scarlet red letters, were three words: _DON'T GET SCARED. _Ichabod eyed the message quizzically as he passed. The hallway opened into a large kitchen and dining room.

Where the hallway had been well-lit, this area of the house was steeped in darkness. Wan moonlight slanted through the windows that lined the left wall, but the bleak illumination had little effect on the heavy shadows. They hung like mourning canopies from the ceiling, making the room feel airless and frozen in grief.

The space made Ichabod immediately uneasy. The room was decorated with bookshelves, framed pictures…even a sleeping cat rested against the wall. But instead of real, tangible items, these were colored paper images that had been plastered to the walls, to make it look like they were real. The items were a farce; two-dimensional imitations of the real things. All were brightly painted in bizarre combinations of oranges, yellows, pinks, reds, and blues. These details struck him as increasingly bizarre – he could conceive of no reason for any house to contain such odd décor.

He froze when his gaze reached the opposite side of the room. At the far end of the kitchen, a solitary red chair had been dragged from the dining room table to the low counter. The chair wasn't facing him, and the corner cloaked in shadow. However, Ichabod immediately recognized the stark profile of Abigail Mills' taught shoulders. Her forehead was resting in the cradle of her hands, and she appeared as one who carried the weight of the world on her back. Guilt lanced into his chest as he recalled the foolish decisions he'd made that had left her stranded here – in the darkest of places, save Hell itself. As he watched, she shook her head as if to refocus her thoughts on something. He could hear what he thought was her voice, low and serious, but could not make out the words she was speaking.

Impossibly, inescapably, he took a step towards her. The voice in his head shouted madly that he keep his distance – he'd been fooled once already. But his traitorous limbs yearned to step closer, and closer still. If this really was Lieutenant Mills, Crane couldn't fathom keeping his distance much longer. Before he could move towards her again, he opened his mouth.

"Lieutenant?"

Her voice halted and she sat up immediately, back going straight as an arrow. Ichabod braced himself for anything – disappointment most of all. Abbie turned in the chair. Stood.

"Crane?"

She stepped around the chair, towards him, and stopped. The action brought her face into the light. Her lips were raw and chapped, and her skin appeared ashen and pale to his eyes. Her eyes were rimmed in red and accented by dark, tired shadows. The black line around her eyes was smudged and uneven, like she'd been crying. Her cowl-necked, long-sleeved top was ripped at the shoulder, and her jeans sported mud and grass stains. Her face was pinched with a look of severe distrust, and she was looking him up and down just as he was her. She took a step closer. Ichabod remained still, almost afraid to ask the inevitable. Fortuitously, Abbie asked it for him.

"Is it really you this time?"

Her voice sounded dead. Hollow. Her tense posture oozed skepticism. Ichabod was distracted, despite himself.

"This time?" he repeated dumbly.

"You heard me." In a blink, her tone shifted, becoming a low and threatening growl – like she didn't fancy being toyed with by him, or anyone else. The change was so sudden that Ichabod found himself fighting the compulsion to step back; give her space. Her stiff bearing called to mind the image of a dog with its hackles raised.

The lieutenant's affinity towards suspicion had clearly not deserted her in this strange sanctuary. _If anything, it has intensified._ Ichabod thought as he considered her.

"Do you often see me in this place, Miss Mills?" He asked, genuinely curious.

Abbie looked him over once more, her expression guarded. Finally, she responded.

"Sometimes. Though none of you have ever gotten inside before."

Ichabod considered that. Had Moloch been tormenting her with the face of her fellow witness? Tried to lure her from this apparent safe haven?

Abbie shrugged and looked down. "Though I was actually _trying _to summon you this time, so maybe I finally got a result." She rolled her eyes and chuckled sarcastically. "_As_ _if..._"

Ichabod raised an eyebrow, intrigued. She thought he was an illusion, then. And he had every reason to suspect the same of her, he vehemently reminded himself. However, his heart caught as he took in her red eyes and the dark circles beneath them. Against sanity, he stepped towards her. He refused to take offense when she immediately backed away from him, maintaining her distance like a wary animal.

"When we first journeyed _here_…" he began, gesturing to their surroundings, "…to _purgatory_, I found you lying prostrate on the ground."

Abbie's eyes widened fractionally – she remembered, as well? Ichabod took comfort, and continued.

"We were both apprehensive – wary that the other was some sort of trick designed by Moloch to mislead us. Torment us, even." He met her gaze. After a moment's hesitation, Abbie granted him a slow, reserved nod of agreement.

"In order to evidence my reality to you, you asked me a question."

At the words, her eyes grew wide as saucers and all the blood drained from her face. Slowly, keeping his hands out in full view, Ichabod inched closer to her. He stopped when she was just within reach. He noticed a shudder course through her body, and realized what it cost her to remain still and let him so close without backing away. The distance, however, was necessary in this case. Silently, Ichabod extended his fist towards her shoulder.

"My reply."

Abbie's mouth dropped open audibly. Her gaze went from his closed fist to his face. The tense skepticism bled from her ashen features like ink, and was immediately replaced by an expression of utter astonishment. Ichabod couldn't help but smile at the vivid change. She believed him.

Then, in a split-second, her amazement vanished. Her chin jutted out; brown eyes blazed with indignation. Blood returned to her face, flushing her cheeks to nearly red. She took two rapid steps forward, and Ichabod saw her right hand clench into a fist just before she swung.


	3. Right Hook

Abbie's fist connected with his jaw with enough force to send him staggering backwards and to the right. It was a perfect shot – _amazing_, considering their height difference.

Ichabod had the mind to be impressed as he grunted at the impact of the blow. He grasped his jaw as he steadied himself against a wall. He looked up in shock just as she rushed him, fists bared.

"_YOU!" _

Her fists loosed to open palms just before she landed her second hit on his shoulder. _Slap! _Another impassioned hit found its mark lower, on the right side of his abdomen. _Slap!_

Ichabod found himself backed against a wall as she continued to frantically swat at him over and over. She pelted blow after blow down on him like brimstone, taking aim for his shoulders and chest like he was a no more than a stuffed boxing dummy. He offered no resistance – he just let her unload on him. Her anger, her pain, her fear… He deserved every whit.

"Abbie…" Ichabod tried to grasp her arms, but she violently shook him off. She closed her hands, by now no doubt red and stinging, and pounded her fists blindly against his chest in aggravation. Her anger was wordless and ferocious in its intensity.

"_You…son of a…bitch!" _She ground out. Her eyes sparkled with fury and unshed tears. He saw her shaking; her muscles were complaining at the exertion. A thin sheen of sweat had gathered on her forehead, and her breath came in heavy pants. Still, rather than stepping away, she settled for shoving him furiously against the wall with both hands.

His back slammed into the wall once…twice…

She reached out a third time, gasping with the exertion of her outburst. Ichabod braced himself for another impulse. But this time, rather than shove him away, she gripped his coat and hauled him impossibly closer. She clasped her small hands behind his back and crushed him to her, squeezing him so tightly that it was difficult to breathe and burying her face in his shirt. Her low, helpless moan of relief cut him to the quick. _What had Moloch done to her?_

Ichabod immediately returned the embrace. His right hand rubbed soothing circles over her shoulders, while his left held her securely against him. He felt her petite frame shake with a sob, and clutched her more tightly.

"I am so sorry…" The substantial lump in his throat made talking nearly impossible. And he was at a complete loss for what to say; how to console her. There was no apology for trapping a soul in purgatory. Regardless if there was, he didn't deserve forgiveness. Not for this. Not ever.

"Shut up." Her voice was a muffled croak against his shirt. Her arms shook with exhaustion, but her grip on him stayed firm.

"Wh- "

"Don't. Speak." Her small, flinty voice threatened murder, despite the insistency of her snug embrace. Ichabod forced himself to keep silent.

After a few loaded seconds, Abbie awkwardly pushed away from him. She wordlessly wiped her eyes with her fingertips before dropping her arms. They swung heavily at her sides as she retreated a few steps, putting some much-needed distance between them. Ichabod tried not to wince at the soreness in his ribs as he managed a full breath.

"Okay…" Abbie began, pacing away from him before coming back, then repeating the motion. Her voice was still thick with emotion, and her small body vibrated with restless energy. She flashed a boiling gaze his direction before continuing.

"Okay, I am _really_ mad at you, Crane…" She stopped and let out a slow breath. She raised her eyes again. They scalded.

"I am really mad at you…but something tells me that we don't have very much time. So…" She paced back towards him. "…let me just cut to the chase. How did you get in here?"

"I don't know." Crane answered honestly. He followed quickly with, "Are you alright?"

He meant the inquiry sincerely – she was clearly unwell, at least physically. And her erratic behavior was making him more than uneasy as to the state of her mental faculties.

"I'm _peachy._" Abbie bit off, her expression severe. Clearly it had been the wrong question to ask.

"If I'm not mistaken, it was part of your own personal agenda to remain here." Ichabod reminded her hotly. Despite everything, her anger never failed to provoke him. _At least some reactions can still be counted own…_

"If _I'm_ not mistaken, your blind faith in your wife may have just gotten all of us _killed_." Abbie shot back. The words were meant to cut, and they did. Deeply.

"Well I'm not the one who volunteered to stay in purgatory, saying that there was _no other option_!" He defended himself rashly.

"_Well I'm not the friend who let me stay_!" Abbie all but screamed at him.

Ichabod fell silent, dropping his eyes to the floorboards. There was truly nothing he could say against that. He'd known in his heart that he was being selfish, allowing Abigail to sacrifice herself so that he and his wife could have a chance at a normal life together, in the real world. He could have forced her to go without him. Instead, he had stayed silent. He had delivered her to slaughter without so much as a brief hesitation. It was sick, really. How easy it had been leaving her. Justifying it with the reassurance that it would only be a day, maybe a week at most, before they would return for her. _She would only have to last until then…_

Here she was, precisely where her trust in him had led her – beyond nearly all hope of rescue. Neither of them could have ever predicted how the fulfillment of one, small prophecy could have shattered both of their worlds. Because he had brought Katrina back, the horseman of death had her and the second horseman had been unleashed. He had been left for dead. There was nothing to be done to save Abbie. And looking at her, seething, he could tell that she'd ascertained as much.

Abbie pursed her lips, and let out three more calming breaths. He watched as she did, and flexed his hands at his sides.

"I'm sorry." She said. "I didn't mean that. What I meant was…" she swallowed and looked up, "…I'm not the friend who _promised_ that he would be back." Her eyes were resentful. Twin trails of tears escaped down her cheeks before she scrubbed them away. She shook her head and looked down.

"I mean, Crane, I _trusted _you…" She stopped and clamped her lips together. She quickly turned away from him, resting her hands on her hips. She exhaled shakily. When she turned back around, her expression was blank and her eyes were dry.

"I'm fine, Crane." She rolled her shoulders. "I am _unhurt_, so far."

"I'm grateful." He answered after a pause. She simply scoffed and shook her head.

Ichabod waited, before curiosity forced him to break the uncomfortable silence between them.

"How is it that I am here? With you?"

In answer, Abbie turned away and walked to the kitchen counter. She grabbed something up and returned, dangling the item in front of him.

"Katrina's amulet." Ichabod recognized it immediately. She nodded, and brought the necklace back into her palm.

"I, um…" she cleared her throat. "I was trying to use it summon you here. To purgatory." She explained. She lifted her hand, vaguely gesturing at the surrounding room, before dropping it. Her palm landed against her thigh with an audible _smack_.

"I didn't think it would work, but it was worth a shot."

Ichabod's eyes zeroed in on the small circle of bronze and iron, intrigued.

"Which is why…" she continued with a trademark sigh, "…I don't think we're gonna have a lot of time to chat. Katrina herself couldn't keep the door to this place open for very long, and she's a _witch. _This?" She folded up the necklace and placed it on the kitchen table. "This is just her coven's hexed jewelry."

"So you're saying…this is only a vision?" Ichabod clarified. Abbie cracked a hard smile. "Yep. Don't worry Crane – you're not actually in purgatory."

Ichabod bristled. Abbie ignored that.

"A vision, a dream – whatever you want to call it." She spread her arms. "Is what it is."

She raised her eyes to the ceiling, as if beseeching the good Lord for strength. "And I never thought Katrina and I had much in common…"

Ichabod raised an eyebrow, considering the various implications of the sentence. She saw his expression, and smiled without mirth.

"Now…" she started again, stepping closer. "I understand why you didn't come back for me."

"You understand?" Ichabod echoed, feeling strangely off-balance from the blunt admission.

"Not that it _in any way _makes this okay." Abbie warned, "But...while I was in here, I saw the truth about Henry."

Ichabod's blood turned to ice.

Her voice dropped to a more solemn cadence.

"I saw who he really was."

"_Saw_?" Ichabod sputtered. "I don't understand…"

Abbie moved to lean against the wall, that jutted out at part of the threshold to the kitchen. She crossed her arms.

"You remember how I told you about Jenny and I, seeing Moloch in the woods for that first time?"

"Yes...," He answered.

She sniffed. "_Well…_we both thought, Jenny and me, that we'd blacked out after seeing him, and that was it; end of story."

"There was more." Ichabod prodded. He had the feeling that he already knew what she would tell him.

Abbie met his stare evenly.

"As you probably know…there was a lot more."


	4. Time to Wake Up

She told him about her vision – what both sisters had witnessed that day. She explained why their minds had been silenced. Of course Moloch had won against them. They were mere children, they didn't know. When she'd finished, she looked to him.

"Where are you right now?"

Ichabod swallowed. "In Jeremy's – Henry's – unmarked grave."

Abbie winced.

"He bound me there so that I could not stop him." Ichabod spit the words out like they were poison.

"And Katrina?" Abbie inquired.

Ichabod bowed his head.

"She is with the horseman of death. He took her, as was promised."

Abbie shook her head, looking down.

"God damn…" she murmured softly.

"Had I but known…" Ichabod whispered fervently to the floorboards. "What fulfilling this prophecy would mean…what it would do to both of us…"

"You'd take it back?" Abbie quipped sardonically. Ichabod's eyes flashed to her face. Her expression, though disbelieving, was sympathetic.

"For all the world." He answered solemnly. Abbie tried to smile genuinely at that, but pain – pure, apparent _pain – _twisted her features into a grimace.

"You remember what you said to me?"

Ichabod winced, his eyes shutting against the memory, faithfully preserved like so many of his others.

"That I would not betray your trust for the world." He whispered. It was ironic, how he could remember things even when he didn't want to.

"And that you and I, we would choose our own destiny. No forbidden roads, no shady deals, no _prophecies_…," She trailed off as her voice suddenly waxed thick. She blinked rapidly, before shoving off the wall.

Crossing to where Crane stood, Abbie grasped his hand in hers. He hadn't notice the silent tears that had streaked down his cheeks, until she raised her thumb to wipe them away.

"I'm sorry…for planting the idea in your head." She whispered. "I should have never volunteered to stay."

She locked her gaze with his. "I should have known better than to tempt fate like that."

"Is that an admission of guilt?" Crane couldn't help but bait her.

"_No_." She enunciated the word by squeezing his hand. He laughed, once, at her tenacity. It was a pained sound.

"And…," she continued, "I'm sorry for beating you up."

"_Beating me?_ I hardly think that's fair…" Ichabod returned. "I can think of a variety of small mammals that could have easily inflicted more damage than-" He broke off with a hiss when Abbie poked the left side of his jaw. _The minx. _He'd nearly forgotten that one.

Abbie smiled.

"You do look a little worse for wear."

He met her gaze, and gently clasped his other hand about hers. His smile faded as he contemplated exactly what to say to her. How he could ever make amends. He began with the most honest declaration he could express.

"I am so sorry." He whispered. No, that didn't nearly cover it. "I-"

He stopped when Abbie's head suddenly jerked away, her eyes refocusing on something behind him.

"What is it?" He spun, but saw nothing behind him but the pink windowpanes, stark against the bright moonlight. He felt her pry her hand from between both of his, and turned back in confusion.

"It's time for you to go, I think." She whispered hoarsely. She managed an acrid twist of the lips as she backed away, towards the shadows.

"How do you know?" he asked. She shrugged.

"It's just a feeling." She looked beyond him again. "And a good one, at that."

Ichabod felt himself being slowly pulled backwards, towards the windows. She was right – he was leaving her. He looked back and saw tears streaming, unchecked, down her face.

"Ichabod?" she choked.

"Yes?"

"Do you remember what you said to me? About why my sister and I fight?"

Of course he remembered.

"Because you care deeply for one another."

Abbie nodded. Her lower lip quivered, but her shoulders remained strong. Ichabod fought against the mist to keep her in sight, but it was useless.

"Time to wake up." Were the last words he heard.

** So I hope you at least enjoyed some of this! I know that parts of this fic are definitely OOC, and that I bent the story a little to suit my own desires. But I hope you got something cool out of it. Thanks for reading!**


	5. Cracked

Abbie watched the floor intently as, shade by shade, Ichabod's lingering shadow faded from the smooth, sienna panels. Only when milky moonlight remained where he'd stood did she allow herself to sink, slowly, to the floor.

As much as she fought it, trembling knees refused to support her. Trembling hands gripped the kitchen cabinets in order to stay upright at all. A pathetic sob ripped rebelliously from her throat, betraying the turmoil swirling inside her. Abbie grimaced, scrambling internally for some semblance of control. Her stomach felt like it was housing a Kansas twister that someone had thrown into a blender for good measure, and her head was filled with the dust.

_"__In Jeremy – Henry's – unmarked grave…"_

_"__Beating me? I hardly think that's fair…"_

_"__I am so sorry…I…"_

"Stop…," She groaned as her traitorous mind replayed the moments like a film reel. "No more…"

She didn't want to feel sorry for Ichabod Crane. Even more than that, she didn't want to miss him to the point of debilitation.

_You can't trust him anymore. He betrayed you, and he left you._

She cringed, ducking her chin into her chest as the voice in her head yelled the words louder.

_You don't need him – you never did. You don't need friends. You don't need trust. _

A tremor ran through her and she bit down on a callous on her thumb. Anything to distract from the pain.

Deep in her heart, she knew these words were lies. Crane was her friend, and she did need him. Just as he had always said he needed her. Only now…he'd abandoned her. He'd been presented with a choice – her or Katrina – and his decision had caught them all in a hellish ripple effect. There was no escaping it, and more than anything she wanted to be angry without sympathy for him. The traumatized little girl that lived inside her could not fathom missing or, God forbid, actually _needing _anyone who had the power to hurt her so terribly.

_You are strong. _The girl told her. Even Abbie could tell that she was grasping at straws. _You are even stronger alone._

Abbie immediately thought of Corbin. Of Jenny. Of all the people that she had let into her life and loved with her whole heart, no holds barred.

"That's not true." She mumbled to herself. She did need them. She was stronger with them by her side than she'd ever been alone. _But oh, how much easier things would be if it was true_, she thought wryly. She shivered as the perspiration on her forehead and neck cooled to match the room temperature.

A shape flickered outside the window, drawing her eye. She turned her head, but was too far from the glass to see anything outside clearly. Abbie's quads shook like autumn leaves as she unfolded from her crouch and slowly stood. Her breathing was heavy and loose, even to her own ears, and she had to place her hand against the wall to be sure that she didn't sway. _Easy, Mills. Get it together. _

Managing to keep her back straight, Abbie skimmed her hand on the linoleum countertop as she moved across the room to the narrow pink windows. _Nice and steady._

The glare from the moon was so bright that she had to cup her hands around the glass to see out.

Terror shot through her like she'd touched a live wire when she made immediate eye contact with Ichabod Crane. He stood outside, mere feet away, posture ramrod-straight, staring into the window; still as stone. Abbie knew that she was safe in this house, but common sense screamed that only a thin sheet of glass kept him out. It didn't matter that the glass had proven virtually indestructible; her sense of terror could not be so easily persuaded to calm down.

Crane's black eyes narrowed infinitesimally, his head cocking slightly to the side like a dog picking up a sound, as she stepped cautiously back from the windowpane. It was like he could smell the fear on her. It made her blood run cold to see those soulless, serpent eyes interminably fixed, and she could feel his stare like clammy hands on her body.

These hallucinations had tormented her for what felt like days, but she had no real way of keeping the time in purgatory. Her watch had stopped the second she'd crossed the threshold. The flat, dead eyes of the nasty things were the only indication that what she was seeing wasn't real, and she clung to that tiny detail like a drowning man to a life preserver. She wasn't sure how she could stay sane otherwise; if there was no distinction between this Crane and the real one, she didn't want to imagine the kind of hell she would suffer. Here, on the outskirts of the actual hell.

This pretend Crane stared up at her like a snake picking a mouse for dinner; or a serial killer scoping out a victim; a far cry from the real man she'd just spoken to.

If she stared too long at the doppelganger she almost certainly began to hyperventilate. It embarrassed her how affected she was, seeing even an image of Crane look at her like that. Since when had he gotten so completely under her skin? Since when was she, a freaking New York cop, so easily rattled? Everything about purgatory had, so far, made her feel fragile and exposed. Vulnerable, in a way that she hardly ever was on the outside; in the 'real' world.

"Did you and your friend fight?" A dull voice came from behind her. Abbie knew, without even turning around, who it was.

"No, mini-me." She stopped. "I mean…yes." She turned and found the girl standing a few feet behind her, staring into the darkness.

"What I mean is, you don't have to worry about it." Heaven forbid she begin pushing her emotional indecision on a 13 year old memory of _her_. What would be next? Group therapy with the arch demons?

"Oh." The teen Abbie replied. Abbie abandoned the window and stepped around her, reversing back to the kitchen.

"Oh my God." Her heart stopped as she approached the round dining table. The amulet – Katrina's amulet, the one commissioned to keep her safe, and the one that had, against all impossibility, summoned Crane to this twisted little world – sat on the table exactly where she'd left it mere moments before. But now, a criss-cross network of lines cut through the medallion, marring the Latin words carved around the image and reaching out towards the edges of the pendant like veins. Abbie switched on the ceiling light to confirm what her eyes could barely believe. The amulet gleamed in the fluorescent glow, it's cracks becoming even more pronounced.

"No…," She groaned aloud. Keeping her touch feather-light, she used her index finger to gently push against one of the pendant's filed edges. Instantly, the entire amulet fragmented, dividing into twenty or more tiny chunks of metal and stone.

"_Shit_!" She raked her hands through her hair as her only chance of communicating with the outside crumbled – literally – right in front of her.

"_God…damn-" _She sucked in a breath and shook her head furiously, switching the light off so she didn't have to see her tiny world collapsing in vivid detail. Suddenly the room was too small – there wasn't enough oxygen to light a match with, much less breathe. Choking, chest heaving, Abbie walked quickly into the hallway. Placing her hands solidly against the wall, she attempted some deep breaths.

_It'll be okay. _She desperately tried to soothe. _It's going to be okay. You're fine, you'll get out of here. There's always a way out. _She exhaled. _It's okay…_

She started when a hand was laid on her shoulder. The 13 year old version of Jenny looked up at her with sad, liquid puppy eyes. Her straight, woodsy brown hair was pulled back neatly with a black headband, and the skirt and shirt of her school uniform nicely pressed. She reminded Abbie so much of the real Jenny at that age – still very much the dreamer, full of emotion and sensitivity. Ever-willing to follow Abbie's lead, in almost anything. Yet idealist enough to speak her mind, with no thought to the repercussions.

Abbie had always been the more resolute of the two. She'd prided herself, as a child, on her ability to assess situations, and to determine the most logical course of action.

_Logical. _

More like defensive. Strategic, even. Every decision of every day was about survival, for both of them.

"Are you okay?" The Jenny image whispered shyly. Abbie almost laughed. _Jenny. Shy. Now _there_ was an oxymoron._

"I'm fine, sweetie. But I think I'm going to have a word with your sister real quick." Abbie smiled reassuringly. "Okay?"

The Jenny image's expression watered down from half-hearted sympathy to a blank, almost resentful stare, and she withdrew her hand. Stepping away, she meandered back down the hall, humming a disjointed melody to herself, before disappearing into the shadows at the end. Abbie watched her go, wondering why the girl had even bothered saying anything to her at all. Nearly every time Abbie even looked at this version of her sister, the younger girl clammed up and withdrew. Not at all like the more straightforward, outspoken younger Abbie.

Abbie walked back around the corner and saw that version standing exactly where she'd left her; staring out into the forest. Abbie slid a peripheral glance to the window.

She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding when all that greeted her from the outside were trees and fallen leaves. No specters lingered, at least for now. Abbie stepped in front of the window, throwing the room into half-darkness and blocking the girl's view. She leaned forward so that their faces were nearly level.

"I need to talk to you." She said, businesslike yet polite. "It's about something really important. Okay?"

Her younger self slowly met her eyes. She chewed the inside of her cheek methodically.

"Okay."

"Look…" Abbie placed her hands on her knees, her forehead creasing when her legs protested the minor shift in weight distribution. "Look, I really need to get out of here. I know we've had this discussion before, but I don't think you understand. I need to leave. _Now._"

The younger girl stared, unblinking.

"You understand?" Abbie tried.

It was like she hadn't even spoken. _Okay…_ she thought as she lowered herself to an even less-threatening crouching position in front of her. _Whoa…_ her ankles wobbled, and she reached a hand down to the floor to steady herself .

"You're getting weaker, aren't you?" The young girl asked out of nowhere. Abbie stiffened. She posed the question like she was asking whether Abbie preferred chocolate or vanilla ice cream.

"Where did _that_ come from?" She asked with an indulgent smile, keeping her tone light and upbeat. She forced a cheery chuckle out her tight throat.

The girl's expression didn't change. She stared at Abbie like she was an ant on a log; blissfully unaware of her own insignificance. Abbie assessed her cool eyes, before rolling her shoulders and dropping the carefree facade. She wasn't pulling it off, anyways.

"Why do you think that?" she asked, her voice low and serious.  
>"I don't know much about this place." Her younger self continued like she hadn't spoken. "But I know that humans can't stay here very long."<p>

A roaring filled Abbie's ears.  
>"What…what do you mean 'can't stay here very long?'"<p>

Younger Abbie shrugged. "Living people can't stay here very long."

"Oh yeah?" Abbie challenged. "Well, what happens to them? Do they leave? What?"

"They die." Younger Abbie replied. Her tone had not changed once.

"They all die."

Abbie shot to her feet like she'd been stung. Black blotches quivered in her peripheral vision, but she remained upright.  
>"What the hell did you just say to me?" She asked through a clenched jaw.<p>

"I think you're going to die." The younger Abbie answered. Abbie swallowed, passing a hand over her eyes.

"No, no…," Abbie shook her head. "Katrina was here for two centuries, she survived...,"

_She's a witch, Mills. _She realized grimly. _Not fully human. A lot sturdier. Remember that warlock – Father Knapp? _The supernatural priest of Sleepy Hollow's oldest cathedral, he'd survived in the real world for over two centuries, before his unnatural death at the hands of the horseman.

Abbie's lips thinned as her scarce options sunk in. Reaching down, she gently framed the girl's small, solemn face with both of her hands.

"Then _help me._" She begged in a tremulous whisper.

"_Let me_ _go_." The plea rasped out of her sandpaper throat, and she prepared to beg this little girl for her life.

The girl's brow furrowed a tiny amount. She seemed puzzled by Abbie's intense emotional reaction.

"But you're safe here." She stated matter-of-factly.

"No, I'm _not._" Abbie entreated passionately, squeezing the girl's cheeks gently. "My friends – the people I _love_ – are in danger. The apocalypse is coming, and…" She froze, deciding. "…and you're _right_," she finally admitted on a whisper. "I am getting weaker." She swallowed as she admitted the truth to herself; to both of her selves. She searched the young Abbie's face, beseeching her for some show of warmth; of understanding.

"Haven't you ever loved anyone?" She asked softly; desperately. The girl looked down. Abbie gave her a little shake.

"Do you know what I'm saying?"

The young girl didn't move; just stared at the floor. After a long, tense moment, Abbie dropped her arms to her sides. She stepped back in horror as her situation sunk in. Suddenly, a laugh bubbled up from her chest. The sound had a hollow, hysterical edge to it.

"Well, isn't that just _great_!" She shouted, stepping away and giving the young Abbie an exaggerated once-over. "My own self, and I can't even get her to open the front door_._"

She paced quickly away from the girl, before pacing right back and gripping her shoulders. _Easy, Abbie…_ the voice in the back of her head warned. _She's not Crane. _Abbie stared at her hard. _She's just a shade of you – and all your shortcomings. _Abbie shook her head wearily. Why couldn't she have been more trusting as a kid? More willing to let people in? It was a moot point now, she supposed. She cleared her throat, treating her young self to a calm, no-nonsense expression.

"Let me out." She demanded. The girl shook her head.

"No, you're safe here." She whispered.

"_Don't you understand_?" Abbie drew the words out through her teeth. "_I need to leave. Keeping me here is killing me._"

"No, this is your home now." She whispered, still refusing to make eye contact. Abbie fought the urge to shake her; force her to snap out of it. Her hands contracted on the girl's upper arms.

After a second of deliberation, Abbie forced herself to step away.

"Okay." She backed up, arms raised in surrender position.

"That's fine. Totally fine. I'll find my own way out of here. No problem."

As she spoke she backed up to lean against the paneled wall, near the window.

"Right…" She sniffed, glancing cursorily at the wooden paneling. Suddenly, in a single violent movement, she jerked her elbow back into the wall. _Bang! _

The young Abbie flinched, but didn't look up.

Abbie slammed her elbow back again, even harder this time. All she got in return was shooting pains up her right arm. The impact didn't even make a dent.

"Come on…," she snarled, turning and pounding a fist on the wall. "_Come on!" _

She stepped over and unleashed her fist on the window. The glass shuddered in its pretty pink frame, but refused to so much as crack to her blows. Abbie's vision went red with rage. She'd never considered herself claustrophobic, but the anxiety that built in her now was like a swarm of bees begging to be unleashed on something. Dashing to the kitchen, she grabbed one of the heavy wooden chairs; painted red to match the dining table.

"Let me out!" She shouted as she heaved the chair at the window. The glass vibrated violently as the chair made impact; the shrill ringing of the vibration immediately hit her ears like the aftereffects of a detonation.

She gasped and closed her eyes against the overwhelming pain, dropping to the floor in agony. The shrill ringing echoed over and over in her ears like a never-ending scream. She had to get out of this room. She had to get up. Shoving to her feet, Abbie stumbled to the hallway.

She slid on the silky wooden floor, propelling herself towards the wall and slamming into it before she could stop. She only managed to catch herself against the panels before the rebound sent her sprawling on the floor. As the ringing faded, Abbie could hear her heart pounding in her head.

_I need to get out…come on Abbie, think…_

Down the hallway, to the right – there was a bright pink front door. She'd checked, and there wasn't any doorknob attached. Abbie raced down the hall.

For a police lieutenant, knobs were just a formality anyways. She jogged up to the door, kicking high once she reached it. Her booted feet may as well have been kicking cement, for how useless they were against it. She kicked high three times, then switched to body slamming the door.

"Let me out of here!" She shouted in aggravation.

"_Let me out!_"

In a final burst of strength, Abbie sprinted ten feet and threw her entire body into the door. The impact snapped her head back and threw the rest of her to the floor. She struggled to rise, before collapsing back to the hard wood, exhausted beyond anything she'd ever experienced. She was sweating and panting like a dog, but the air seemed to simply whoosh in and out of her lungs like semi-inflated balloons; never filling the oxygen-starved sacs enough to make a real difference.

Through the tiny flowerbox windows on either side of the door, she glimpsed the specters of both Katrina _and_ Crane watching her, their beady eyes assessing her. The emotionless faces made her feel like a lab rat under observation. It was sick.

"I know you're not real." She infused her contempt into her voice as she addressed them. Neither figure moved. Neither even blinked.

Abbie glared at both hallucinations in disgust. On trembling arms, she raised up her torso and began to drag herself back, towards the brightly lit hallway. Once she'd cleared the corner, she propped herself up against the wall, out of the sight of the ghosts at the window, to catch her breath. The air seemed thin, and she struggled to slow her breathing. No matter how long she gasped, she felt like a fish out of water. She'd pushed herself too hard, and it was hurting.

As she sat there, panting, she began to brainstorm. Her body in purgatory was weak, and apparently fading fast. She needed to formulate a new plan – gather her resources. Get out of this house, and get moving. The doors and windows were a bust, but maybe in other parts of the house… She blinked, trying to focus as her thoughts fluctuated between clear and blurry. The house had two stories, so there must be a staircase that she just wasn't finding. She needed to do another walk-through. Stairs meant possible roof access…

_Crap…_she thought as unexpected blackness carried away all of her planning like dead leaves on a dry wind.

**Let me know what you think? I have this really epic story idea, but am a little daunted by the task of telling it just-so. So please let me know how I can improve my writing! Thanks!**


	6. Code Blue

_"MISS…"_ The voice was loud; obnoxious. Who was yelling…?

_"Hey! Miss? Hey, look at me…" _She felt something rough and scratchy patting her cheek. A glove? A hand?

_"Hey, can you hear me? We're gonna get you out…,"_ The screeching of metal and the rumbling of heavy machinery drowned out whatever else the man was about to say. Jennifer squinted as a white light was shone into each of her eyes. She blinked, trying to focus her blurring vision. An unfamiliar man's red, sweaty face loomed next to hers. His mouth was moving like he was talking, but she couldn't follow the string of words. Her sore eyes slid from him, rolling aimlessly from right to left. She blinked, and everything became blurry again.

Outside of the circle of blinding, heavy-duty lights, a petite figure with dark brown hair and a leather jacket stood watching. Jenny squinted at the shadow, and its edges rippled deceptively.

"Abbie…?" Her mouth formed the word, but no sound escaped her throat.

"…Abbie…?"

The man reached for her seat belt, and Jenny realized that she was hanging upside down. The belt was digging into her stomach, impossibly tight. He began to saw at the belt with a small, serrated blade. She passed out.

_…Abbie…?_

The next thing Jenny knew, the shrill beep of a heart monitor was waking her from a groggy sleep. _Ugh…_ She blinked up at a pair of greenish fluorescent lights. Her watering eyes rolled in their sockets, unresponsive to her directions.

_What the hell…? _

She brought a hand up to rub her eyes roughly, and quickly blinked away the tears the action caused. Her upper forehead felt sore and swollen where her fingers brushed it. She tried to raise her head, but the room careened crazily. Her neck felt like a wet noodle, and didn't provide more much support than one.

Jennifer lolled her head to the left, and a sea foam-green polyester recliner slowly came into focus. This was accompanied by the sounds of shoes and rolling wheels bustling around somewhere outside, as well as people conversing, laughing, calling out orders.

Jenny inhaled deeply, and caught the familiar burn of disinfectant in her nostrils.

_Nice._

She was in a hospital. But which one? And where? She fumbled for the lift button on the side of her bed and rose slowly to a sitting position, surveying the room as she did. _Blue linoleum floor, single room. Expensive new intercom system installed near the door, and..._ Jenny checked both hands, and lifted each foot. _No restraints._ That crossed nearly every hospital she'd visited in the last seven years off the list.

She massaged her temples, begging her fuzzy brain to focus. _How did I get here…?_ It took less than five seconds for the memories, in all their sickening detail, to begin trickling back to her.

Abbie and Ichabod had left her at the Sleepy Hollow Police Dept.'s evidence archives while they'd gone in search of the gate to purgatory, the location of which they believed they'd found somewhere in the woods outside Sleepy Hollow. She'd sworn that she'd come after her sister if they didn't return by nightfall. Abbie had been worried, but had trusted the plan enough to ask her to stay behind and help them by digging through Corbin's old files. _And there was…something else…_

Jenny pursed her lips, concentrating. _There was a name…_

She gasped and her eyes shot open. _St. Henry's Parrish. Henry Parrish. _He was the infamous sin eater, who had volunteered to help Ichabod and Abbie orchestrate and monitor their little "field trip to the world of the dead."

All day, Jenny had been poring over files and audiotapes for anything that could help them piece together Moloch, the overlord of purgatory's, final warning to the witnesses: "the Saint's name is a sign". The name of St. Henry's Parrish had made everything too clear. Henry Parrish was somehow affiliated with Moloch, which meant that Abbie and Ichabod were walking into a trap.

Jenny rolled her head right and left, scanning the room for any sign of her belongings. She remembered now – she had been headed back to the archives after she'd discovered the abandoned church with Henry's name. She'd called her sister on the way, and was leaving a voicemail when the Horseman of Death, out of nowhere, had lunged in front of her car and blown through her front windshield with a sawed-off shotgun. He'd taken out her front tire next, sending her car careening off the road. She remembered glass fracturing all around her, and the groaning of the metal frame as she was thrashed up and down and over and under…

She couldn't remember anything else, but that had been _yesterday. _What time was it? She'd already lost too many hours. She needed to get to the archives, _now_; find out where Abbie and 'British guy' had gone and track them down.

Jenny shoved the clinging felt blankets off of her legs and noted a standard-issue joint brace clasped around her right ankle. She flung both legs over the side of the bed and tentatively put weight on her right foot. There was some discomfort, and some shooting pains in her shin, but she managed to stand without too much of a problem. Probably just a sprain, or a minor fracture at worst. Nothing serious enough to warrant a cast.

She noted that someone had dressed her in a filmy hospital gown, and her hair was undone. Being vertical only ratcheted up the pounding in her head, and she wanted to shoot the damn heart monitor just to make it shut up. She moved to rip the leads off her chest, but stopped. If the monitor received her heart signal as flatlined, she would have maybe 30 seconds before the hospital EMTs brought the crash cart in. She needed more time to get her bearings before she checked herself out of here.

Favoring her left foot, she eased over to the small vanity area near the door, being careful to keep all of her leads attached and wheeling the IV drip with her.

She grimaced at her reflection in the mirror. Her dark, ringlet curls had deteriorated to a frizzy, knotted mane blown around her drawn face, and the harsh light made every crease and imperfection in her pallid skin horribly apparent. It also highlighted a blotchy purple bruise forming at her upper right hairline. The shiny lump was about the size of her closed fist, and five tiny black stitches sewn in at its center really brought out the deep crimson hues. Jenny deftly felt the lump, and winced at how tender the swelling was. _Concussion, definitely. Possible hairline fracture. _she concluded, but leaned closer to inspect the rest of her hairline, just to be sure. Her left foot ran into an object beneath the vanity table, and she heard the crinkling of plastic. Bending over carefully, she drew a sealed plastic hospital bag from under the table. The bag's front logo read _Phelps Memorial Hospital_, with the bold words **PATIENT BELONGINGS **highlighted beneath. Jenny ripped it open. Hobbling over to the bed, she dumped out its contents.

One long-sleeved gray t-shirt (hers), cut neatly down the front by the paramedics. _Useless. _She turned and chucked it into the trashcan by the door. The next item, her quilted, microfiber vest was, thankfully, still intact, save for a few rips on its right side. Next from the pile - her heather gray skinny jeans. One knee was ripped, and the backs of each leg were covered in asphalt smudges, but they were still in one piece. She tugged them on under her hospital gown while she rifled through the rest. They'd saved her black leather, lace-up boots – how thoughtful. One pair of socks...and that was all. Jenny's brow furrowed, and she pilfered through the pile again. Where was her cell phone? She felt the bag; completely empty. The crash must have trashed her phone so badly that the EMTs hadn't seen the need to salvage it. That, or it was still in her car – at whatever impound lot it was probably being held right now.

"I don't have time for this…" she muttered as she yanked on her boots. She laced her right boot especially tight, so that the tension could substitute as support for her ankle brace if she had to put weight on it. She stuffed the socks into her vest pocket and folded the vest under her arm. Snatching a cotton swab from a jar on the vanity, she pressed it down on the entry point for the IV and slowly removed the needle. She then ripped the tape off her arm and threw the tubes on the mattress. In the same breath she snatched her patient chart off of the foot of the bed and scanned the notations, checking for any essential information.

_9:54 pm – Patient admitted_

_Name: Doe, Jane / Sex: F / Age: 20-30_

"I guess that's what I get for driving Corbin's car without a license." She murmured wryly as she read the listed name.

_10:00 pm – Start saline drip_

_10:18 pm – Cranial/Ankle X-Ray_

_10:44 pm – Start morphine drip_

_11:13 pm – Ankle brace admin._

_11:48 pm – Admitted for overnight observation_

_6:19 am – Morphine drip removed_

"Pity." She muttered as she methodically unclipped all of the marked pages from the clipboard. At the moment, she would have appreciated some morphine for her head. Replacing the clipboard at the foot of the mattress, she tucked the pages into the back pocket of her jeans. She would shred them later.

Jenny scanned the room for anything else useful. Finding nothing, she tucked the hospital gown into her waistband and shrugged her vest on over that, zipping it up over the recognizable pastel print. Taking a deep breath, she loosened the collar of her gown and, with one sharp tug, detached the monitor leads from her chest. One, two, three consecutive _pops,_ and she was officially in cardiac arrest.

Jenny threw her hood up and kept her expression calm and indifferent as she exited the room. She could hear nurses firing orders and the crash cart being wheeled into the suite behind her. She quickened her pace and headed for the public elevators. She was forced to duck into a doorway to avoid collision with two young RN's, both rushing to her room.

_"We have a code blue in room 308…,"_ A nasally voice was announcing through the hospital intercom. "_A code blue, room 308…"_

Jenny gritted her teeth and worked to minimize her limp as, seconds later, she stepped out of the elevators and into the first floor lobby. She glanced at the large wall clock – _7:47 am. _She bit back an oath, fists clenching in frustration. If only the bastards must hadn't kept her for overnight observation…

A small, vulnerable part of her whispered a frantic prayer to a God she was yet unconvinced about that her sister, and Crane for that matter, were somehow safe.

Priority one was getting into contact with them, and she didn't have the time to locate the right impound lot and pray her cell phone was still in operation. There were a couple of spare prepaid phones at the archives, she knew. That became her first destination.

Pulling her hood farther down her face to hide her shiner, Jenny sauntered over to the hospital's visitor desk, located near the main doors. The desk was manned, but the valet podium was not. No one gave her a second glance as she passed, not even when she slid a patron's information card off the podium and into her vest pocket, as well as a dirty rubber band from a stack of business cards. As soon as she exited the building she dropped her hood and used the rubber band to tie up the black tumbleweed mess that was her hair.

"Hey!" She waved to get a valet attendant's attention. She calmly handed him the card she'd swiped. The guy – a kid, really; no more than 18 years old – took a quick look from her to the card, then back to her. Jenny gave him a little smile.

"Is there a problem?" She asked considerately.

"Nope." The kid responded quickly. "No problem. Sorry, ma'am."

He pocketed the ticket and jogged off to grab the car. Two minutes later, the same guy rolled up to the drop-off zone in a slate gray 2011 Honda Prius.

Jenny nodded approvingly. _Not bad…could have been worse… _

If everything went according to plan, the owner of this fine vehicle would find it ditched by the side of the road sometime this evening, and no one would be the wiser. Buckling her seatbelt (safety first, right?), she veered out of the hospital's roundabout driveway and on to the main road, leaving rubber behind.


	7. Dear God

"_You've reached Lieutenant Abigail Mills of the Sleepy Hollow Police Department. Please leave a message, and I'll-_"

"Dammit!" Jenny aggressively punched the "end call" button on the crappy, silver cell she'd confiscated from one of the archives' many stock drawers. She'd called Abbie's number three times in as many minutes, and every time she'd been directed straight to voicemail. Not even one ring. That meant her phone was either dead or out of service range.

Turning back to her laptop, Jenny pulled up the smartphone GPS window where she'd entered Abbie's phone model and number ten minutes ago. A pixilated rainbow swirled round and round endlessly against the dark charcoal background of the web page, indicating that it was still loading. Below that, in white block letters, the search site informed her that _Sorry, the location you are searching for is out of range. Please stand by while the system configures to the correct location. _

Jenny raked a hand through her tangled ebony curls, wincing when the action pulled at the tender skin around her forehead laceration. After a second of deliberation, she left the laptop and moved over to the room's main conference desk – a thick, oak table littered with documents, an antique scale, and a few over-used wax candles. For the second time that morning, she began sorting through each item on and around the desk – carefully handling each one, looking under and around it. Finding nothing, she would place each item back exactly where she'd found it. She even double-checked the few stray papers that had wafted to the floor during one or another of Crane and Abbie's assignments. Still, she found nothing relevant.

Grinding her teeth, she paced back to the towering bookshelves near the far windows of the room. The cheery midday sunlight illuminating the black shelves and their rows of musty ledgers did little to lift the tightness in her chest. She deftly scanned the rows, looking for anything that had been removed or laid out in the open for someone to study.

Yesterday, as the 'dream team' had been prepping, she'd seen her sister and Crane linger only here, by the far bookshelf, and at the main desk. Nowhere else in the room had been touched. Henry Parrish had handled Washington's bible once, to re-read an inscription – nothing else. _So where was the map to Purgatory? Or, for that matter, the map of the Sleepy Hollow forestland that they'd used to narrow down Purgatory's location? _

_Where was any of it?_

Jenny turned from the shelves, her hands twisting into useless fists; aching for a target but finding none suitable. It wouldn't quell her frustration to hit a book – or even one of the room's numerous antique lamps. The problem was too big for such an easy release.

Her big sister, Crane, and most likely the freaking _horseman of War himself_ had disappeared yesterday to go find purgatory – and she could not find a _scrap _of evidence in this room that could point to where they'd gone.

"_Seriously?_" She spoke incredulously under her breath. Who does that? Who leaves without a trace? With every second, the possibility of finding them seemed to be slipping away from her.

Frantically, Jenny went over the events of the following morning in her head. She didn't remember seeing either Crane or Abbie leave the archives with anything, besides one of the numerous maps of town tucked under Crane's arm. But then, she hadn't thought to look very closely at either of them as they passed her. Henry hadn't left with anything that she'd seen. Washington's bible lay where he'd last closed it – safe and sound on the small library table next to her laptop. She jerked her head up, snapping her fingers.

"Washington's bible."

She dashed to the table and yanked the cover open, nearly destroying the ancient binding as she flipped madly towards the book of John. _Maybe the smartass prez left at least a clue for those seeking purgatory…_

Either way, with the GPS locator still endlessly buffering in the background, it was the only lead she had to follow.

She started at chapter 11: the story of Lazarus. The last ten verses of the passage were virtually illegible; eclipsed by Washington's brief written instructions to Ichabod. Also, the water, lemon juice, and baking soda solution Ichabod had used to reveal the hidden writing had almost completely bleached the original ink type from the page.

The margin of the page had been filled in with a few short notations written in Ichabod's own hand. She skimmed Washington's written words, searching for anything to do with purgatory.

_"Instructions from President George Washington for Captain Ichabod Crane, Esquire…,"_

_"Dear Sir, _

_If you are reading this now, then the War has resumed…,"_

_"Four days ago, I died…,"_

_"My final mission was to skirt the icy bonds of Death and resurrect myself…,"_

_"…so that I could draft for you a map charting the passage from Earth to Purgatory...,"_

"Okay…okay…" Jenny murmured, recognizing the words as those that Ichabod had shown her the morning before. "Anything else?"

There were no further instructions from Washington on the page. She reviewed the notes written in Ichabod's precise, flowery handwriting.

_"Once reached location of gateway, repeat words: We the penitent, with humble heart, upon this gateway do summon thee. In mirrored form appear, a gateway to the world between worlds."_

Jennifer mouthed the words quietly to herself, tasting them. Nothing happened, of course. She wasn't naïve enough to expect anything that easily. She sighed as she reached the end of the page. No more instructions had been left – from either zombie Washington or Crane.

Suppressing the ever-growing urge to throw the dirty copy of the gospels against the far wall, she shoved away from the desk and crossed the room. Folding her arms over her chest, she began pacing. Her bare skin prickled with goose bumps as she passed the windows. Even with her vest zipped up over it, the short-sleeved plastic hospital gown provided little protection for her upper body from the chill January air slipping through the cracks in the window panes. Rubbing her arms up and down for warmth, she cast a glance at her laptop. Buffering; endlessly buffering. The pixel rainbow swirled round and round hypnotically. However, the picture looked different somehow.

Glancing again at the screen, it suddenly struck her that something about the image had changed. Jenny stepped closer, a tiny spark of hope kindling. It was immediately extinguished when she realized what had changed. Instead of the previous message, apologizing to the customer for any inconvenience, the stark white text at the bottom simply read _LOCATION NOT FOUND_.

Jenny stepped back, her breath catching on a massive lump in her throat as the futility of her search smacked her full in the face. She might never see her sister again. The second of the four horsemen may already be upon them, and Abbie and Crane could be lost forever in purgatory and she had _no way _of reaching either of them! Jenny hiccupped, clenching both arms tight around her body – as if that would staunch the flow of emotion from her soul.

_Dear God…_

She swallowed, letting the fractured thought fade away, unfinished.

Jenny remembered, vividly, the first time her big sister had taught her how to pray in church. She'd been five – Abbie had been eight.

_"Why's everyone look down in church?"_ She'd asked, tugging on her sister's arm. Abbie had yanked her white cotton cardigan out of Jenny's reach, flashing her a warning look. That look was known and feared by little sisters everywhere, though Jenny often missed it completely, not catching on to her sister's disapproval until the third, maybe the fourth infraction.

_"It's because you're supposed to." _She'd whispered as the preacher began speaking.

_"But why?" _Jenny had nearly shouted, nonplussed by the revered silence of the churchgoers around her. Several rows of heads turned towards the noise, while Abbie immediately shoved her hand over Jenny's mouth, shushing her.

_"Shhhh." _She'd warned, before letting go. Jenny had immediately stuck her tongue out, trying to lick Abbie's palm. Abbie at snatched her hand away, a little giggle escaping as Jenny waggled her pink tongue back and forth like a dog. Both girls dissolved in hushed snickering, before momma had reached across from her seat and silenced them both with a look and a harsh yank on both of their braids.

Abbie had quickly shushed her sister again before she could cry out, but a few fat tears had rolled from Jenny's eyes to Abbie's knuckles where they squeezed her mouth shut. After allowing her a moment to calm down, Abbie had removed her hand and used the soft edge of her snowy white sleeve to wipe Jenny's face.

_"People don't look down, silly. They bow their heads." _She'd whispered, as if the small distinction was vitally important to the act. Looking back, Jenny realized that she'd only been trying to distract her from her blubbering.

_"And when you bow your head, that means you're about to start talking to God." _Abbie had continued in a barely-there whisper.

_"What do you say to him?" _Jenny mirrored her sister's quiet tone, unable to contain her curiosity.

Abbie made a show of thinking very seriously. _"Okay." _She began finally, turning to face Jenny. Her face was very solemn.

_"There's only one right way to do it. And I'mma teach you right now, okay?" _

_"Okay." _Jenny had whispered, hardly believing her good luck. Not just anyone had a big sister who would willingly impart this kind of information for _nothing_…

_"Okay first, you put your hands together like this." _Abbie had shown her, folding her fingers together on her lap.

_"Now bow your head." _

Again she had shown her, by bending her neck down so that her chin was flush with her chest.

_"Now shut your eyes – don't you open them!" _She'd scolded when Jenny peeked. Obediently, Jenny had squeezed her eyes shut – so tight that she saw stars and swirling milky ways beneath her lids.

_"Now what?" _Jenny had whispered excitedly. The tension in her little body was killing her.

_"You start by saying, 'Dear God'…," _She heard Abbie instruct.

_"Dear God…," _she began.

_"And then you tell God everything that you want to say." _Abbie continued, close to her ear. _"God's real good at keeping secrets, so you can tell him about any secrets you might have. Or you can confess things… like, admit when you done something wrong. Or…," _She'd continued fervently. _"Sometimes, you can even ask him for stuff."_

_"Really?" _Jenny had asked, peeking up through her lashes in disbelief. Abbie nodded solemnly, eyes locked on hers.

_"Really. And he might give it to you, too. If you're good enough…,"_

"If you're good enough." Jenny whispered as the bare cathedral walls were replaced by shelves and tables, lanterns and chairs. "If you're good enough…,"

Jenny turned round in a slow circle, her eyes taking in the many details and quirks of the little base camp that had become, to Abbie and Crane, and to her as well, a kind of second home. These walls were filled with the stories of countless generations; had endured reigns of tyranny and times of salvation. These walls had seen the battlefield; it only followed that they had seen God as well.

There, at the center of this small fortress, Jennifer Mills sunk to her knees. Obediently, she clasped her hands in front of her – fingers interlocked, knuckles white with the fervency of her conviction. She squeezed her eyes shut.

"Dear God," she began, but her voice made hardly any sound. She breathed, swallowed, tried again.

"Dear God…I know that I _am not_ good enough." Her fingers twitched uncomfortably, but she pushed on. "The way I see it, I may never be good enough. But Abbie…," She paused for breath. "Abbie _is_ good enough." The admission, something she'd have never spoken a year ago, not in her lifetime, now spilled easily from her lips.

"You chose her to be a witness." She continued. "Now please…help me find her." She exhaled shakily. "Dear God…this is all that I ask, that you help me find my sister." Her voice shook. "Help me find Abbie…"

Before she could go on, a deafening _bang! _sounded directly behind her. The noise was like a gunshot, and in a single motion she had spun and was on her feet. She pulled from her waistband the glock she'd borrowed from a desk drawer and leveled it at the far wall, eyes scanning for the source of the noise. Her tense shoulders relaxed a little when she saw that the sound had come from one of the high windows slamming open against the wall. The lock on the pane must have come loose somehow, and a gust of wind had just now blown it open. The freezing winter air gusted through the open porthole with a vengeance, whipping her hair back and sending papers flying everywhere.

"No, no, no! Shit!" She spluttered as she jammed the gun back into the waistband of her jeans and raced to grab a stepstool. The supernatural wind pinned the window open as it shredded through the archives, swirling documents into paper twisters around her and saturating the place with cold air. Jenny scrambled atop a stepladder and, with a grunt, finally managed to shove the window shut. She latched the cast iron lock vindictively. Breathing hard, she leaned against wall and surveyed the room from where she stood, aloft.

"Oh, come _on_…"

Every scrap of loose paper, from the documents that had been scattered about the desk to the loose pages in some of the older books, had settled over nearly every bare surface in the room. Maps, drawings, first-hand accounts, mug-shots, and witness statements all mixed together in a massive paper-gumbo that had splattered over everything.

Jenny's teeth snapped together with enough force to grind solid rock to sand, her aggravation coursing deeper than words. It would take _hours _to sort through this mess.

"That's what I get for praying." She squeezed the words out.

Stiffly, she dismounted the stepstool and bent to retrieve a stack of pages from the floor. She gathered the shuffled papers snugly against her chest like leaves before placing them on the nearest desk. As she straightened with another pile, a small, seemingly insignificant detail caught her eye. Washington's bible lay open, and, unlike her laptop, it was not completely blanketed in paper. Because of this, as she drew nearer, she was able to make out the words "_death_"and "_living_"written in brown ink on the page. There was also the end of a word, "_-llen._"She couldn't be sure, but the faded letters looked an awful lot like Washington's handwriting.

Jenny cautiously bent over the page, inspecting the writing. No other words were legible, but hints of brown ink peeked out from between the typed verses. There was no rhyme or reason to the scatterings, that she could see. She checked the chapter and verse at the top of the page. _John 12: Jesus Anointed at Bethany. _Her brow furrowed at the reference. What did that specific chapter have to do with anything?

Suddenly, she realized what she'd been missing. This had nothing to do with John chapter 12, but everything to do with the page that came right before it. She flipped back one page, and sure enough – chapter 11 of John, and Washington's message over it. During the chaos, the wind must have blown the page over. If it hadn't, she would never have even noticed the discoloration on chapter 12, nor the faint words.

Crane clearly hadn't touched any of chapter 12, or the words would be clearly revealed and legible. Neither he nor Abbie had thought to look there, either, or they would have immediately seen what Jenny saw now. The mixture of water, lemon juice, and baking soda that had been brushed across the previous page had leached through the thin, ancient paper, soaking the page completely in some places to reveal three words so far: "_death", "living", and "–llen". _

"Could it really be that simple?" She breathed.

In the next second she had bolted across the room and was madly turning over pile after pile of scattered documents. _Where is it…? Where is it…?_

"Yes!" She shouted triumphantly as she found Crane's bottles of lemon juice and water, as well as a spilled box of baking soda, hidden beneath an overturned file. She snatched his miniature mortar and pestle from the where they sat atop an antique podium and hurried back to the table. Dumping her items around the bible, she flipped back to chapter 12. She didn't know Ichabod's formula, so she improvised – adding a generous dollop of each ingredient to the stone bowl, before stirring so hard with the pestle that half the solution splashed across her jeans.

"Shoot…" she mumbled as she wiped at the mess. With her spare hand, she gathered a chunk of her own hair and dipped the strands into the acidic mixture. She waited a few seconds to make sure the strands were saturated, before lifting them out and brushing them across the page. She repeated the action, until both pages were heavily painted with the solution.

She waited. Slowly at first, then more quickly, words began appearing on the pages. Jenny could have kissed the freaking bible. The writing was at a slanted angle, which suggested that it had been written in a hurry, but she was sure that it was Washington's. As the sentences became clearer, she began reading.

_"As my time in this life is quickly drawing short, I have endeavored to retain any information that has come to me regarding the misty realms of purgatory, and the beings which inhabit it. I am disconsolate to admit that there is little knowledge to be apportioned to you. _

_I am not so proud as to claim that I have every expectation of what knowledge you may find useful in this War, so let it be sufficient that I reveal to you all that I know, little that it is: _

_Should a living being pass into purgatory unharmed, and whilst there suffer some fatal harm that results in their immediate death, the poor soul, for a brief moment, shall be invisible to both the eye of God and that of the Enemy. This being the case, during this brief window of opportunity, their body may be retrieved from purgatory and brought back to the world of the living without further repercussion on either side. Unfortunately once the corpse is returned, a proper burial is all that can be provided for the fallen. I sincerely hope that this shall never pass as your experience."_

Jenny leaned away from the pages as she reached the end of the words. What Washington was basically saying was that if her sister or Crane _died_ in purgatory, she could grab back their bodies without starting a supernatural world war.

_That's just great. That makes everything seem so much better. _She thought bitterly, as her subconscious dissolved into incoherent strains of panic.

There was no new information here that could be used to find either Abbie or Crane. Nothing but the last-minute apocalypse tips of an old revolutionary. Jenny bowed her head, defeated. What had she expected, anyways? Some kind of twisted, divine intervention?

"Yeah, right." She dropped the heavy words to her boots. Jennifer Mills had never been special enough for any kind of intervention. It only made sense that God would ignore her prayers, too. Even as she thought this, she couldn't help but glance up at the page again, her hungry eyes scraping the surface for anything new. There was nothing.

_Wait… _Her eye stopped on a speck at the bottom of the right page. _Wait…_

The speck was very definitely an ink smudge. Without a second thought, Jenny dumped the entire bowl of liquid on the smudge. She picked up the dripping book, shoving the page under her nose.

"Come on…," She whispered. "Come on…,"

Reluctantly, two small lines of text emerged. The words had been squeezed in at the bottom margin of the page; they were small, but legible.

_"Those who are without blame and have no warrant in Purgatory may pass unhindered across the Holy Bridge. It is my conviction that a being may return to the world of the living through this gateway, but I have yet to attempt this myself. Good luck, my dear friend. And Godspeed._

_-G.W."_

Jenny jumped, nearly dropping the bible, when her laptop suddenly beeped. Snapping the book shut, she lunged across the desk and flipped the screen around. For a full five seconds, she just stared at the projected image like an idiot. Then the words _LOCATION FOUND _finally sunk in.

With numb fingers, she fumbled across the desk for a pen. On the back of a town map, she scrawled the numbers of the longitude and latitude at which a single red dot rested. She needn't have bothered to record the location; she knew the place. Just a few miles out of town, a spitting distance from where she and Abbie had first seen Moloch, 'the demon in the woods', thirteen long years ago.

Eyes hardly leaving the screen, she somehow managed to dig her phone out of her back pocket and enter Abbie's number. She felt dangerously close to weeping when the first ring sounded through the speaker. Cold dread coiled in her stomach, however, when it rang a second time without being answered. A third. A fourth.

"Abbie…," She pleaded with the device. "Abbie, _please_…,"

Fifth ring.

"Abbie, no…,"

Sixth ring.

"Come on, Abbs…,"

"_You've reached Lieutenant Abigail Mills of the Sleepy Hollow Police Department. Please leave a message, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can._"

As the voicemail box chimed in her ear, Jenny raised her eyes back to the computer screen. The monitor had gone completely dark, save for two small words: _SIGNAL LOST._

It didn't matter. Bible and map in one hand, phone in the other, Jenny was out the door and gone.

**I may have to divvy this mess up into two chapters, lol. :) Sorry for the walls of text! Stay tuned for another exciting installment - har. ;)**


	8. Buried

_"Time to wake up…"_

Ichabod blinked twice and coughed, coming instantly awake. As had become tradition in the last few hours, he immediately strained against the roots that held him captive. Just as with the last attempt, not a one budged. His breaths came hard and fast as he heaved his shoulders up again, wincing when the jagged tendrils constricted around his chest. The tightness forced him to arrest his labors and lie back against the coffin, sucking in shallow gasps of air until the constriction eased to tolerable, and he could draw breath without pain.

With every shift of his weight, every twitch, the dry dirt packed above him responded in kind. Like ash, it filtered down through the crude, pine slats of his coffin, sprinkling generously over his face and clothing as the subsequent dust pooled around him like Hudson fog. The musky stench of decay saturated the thin air that hovered between his eyes and the coffin lid, making those scant gasps that remained to him even more arduous to inhale.

Ichabod had no marker with which to record the passage of time in this hellish prison, and his lapses in consciousness were becoming more frequent – making the task of counting the hours practically moot. He was thankful, nonetheless. That just now, when he had dropped from his shallow grave into unconsciousness again, he had not lingered in the blackness alone. He had seen Abbie.

It did not surprise him that the lieutenant had already uncovered a means of communication from beyond the borders of this world. Her ingenuity was a driving force in itself; and like her passion, not to be underestimated. It had revealed itself as early as the first moments of their acquaintance.

_"You're violating orders…"_

_"Good thing for me is if you say anything, no one will believe you…"_

Though he'd been offended by her barefaced dismissiveness of him, he'd been granted a glimpse of her own rebellious nature. And he missed it. The familiarity of their constant sparring, as well as the rare chances at laughter that they both reveled in. How her eyes changed easily from rich coffee to shimmering fresh honey when she was purely happy – on those sparse occasions when the world had contracted to contain only him, her, and the unknown future. The heavy shadows lifting to reveal, for a brief moment, the very fond nature of their friendship.

And how her eyes glinted in the darkness like hewn steel when something – or someone – incensed her. Even that he missed sorely, though such an expression had been reserved solely for him on more than one occasion.

Ichabod had never counted himself among the many sad-faced, sentimental whelps that had occupied the military in droves during his time. For many an able man, one bitter taste of the battlefield had been enough to send the mind into a downward spiral of nostalgia and regret. He had always prided himself on his keen attention and capability in the heat of battle, as well as the steadfastness of his loyalty to the cause, despite the occasional defeat.

But now, bound and buried like a dog beneath the ground, these small, endearing remembrances visited one by one, each striking him with renewed and uncompromising poignancy. They made him to understand why so many preferred to dwell in a distant past rather than face the obstinate present. The scars of the former eased the sting of the latter. Like a strong spirit, they distracted the drinker from their heartbreak, if only temporarily. And Ichabod had never found himself so keen for a distraction.

His long lost son had been resurrected by Moloch, the purveyor of purgatory, and had been granted his wish for revenge upon the parents who, in his mind, had abandoned him to death centuries ago. Ichabod's precious wife, Katrina, had been freed from purgatory by Abbie's sacrifice – only to be betrayed by her own son and handed over to another one of Moloch's faithful resurrected – the horseman of Death. Henry Parrish now rode free as the horseman of War in Sleepy Hollow, the second of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Crane's first true friend and partner in this new life now lay trapped just above the bowels of Hell, and he along with her. Two witnesses; two graves. How ironic.

_However, _he thought as he sucked in another labored gasp, _she may just survive this. _Abbie was, of course, in danger from Moloch where she was. But unlike him, she was not fighting a physical clock. Soon, he would run out of air. Miss Mills, he calculated, had a much higher chance of survival – if Katrina managed to return to purgatory and rescue her.

As the dry air grew thinner and thinner, and his muscles slowly became limp and senseless, he wondered what had become of Katrina. Wherever she had been borne, could she escape? Could she come to free Abbie, as they'd both promised they would? If he died now, could he take her place in purgatory?

A sharp, trilling sound wrenched Ichabod from his thoughts. Abbie's smart phone was ringing. The sound was muffled by his heavy coat, as the device rested in the inner left pocket, against his chest. He'd almost forgotten that he'd been carrying it. The roots pinned his arms flush to his sides, which had ruled out the idea of fetching it from his pocket hours ago. However, as it rung a third time, Ichabod couldn't help but throw himself against the crusted vines, begging them to give even an inch of slack. The phone rang for the fourth time, and the roots held fast. A fifth time. A thin sheen of perspiration gathered on his forehead as he struggled. A sixth time it rang, before silencing.

* * *

><p>It could have been minutes, or hours later that Abbie finally raised her head. The dollhouse's yellow and blue painted hallway glared back at her, awash in happy golden light. From where she slumped on the floor, she peeked around the corner to the windows adjoining the front door. Beyond the cheery plastic flowers that bloomed in their window boxes, the forest was dark and secretive as always. No ghosts; at least not at present.<p>

Gritting her teeth against her screaming muscles, Abbie grasped at the protruding corner of the wall. Eventually her fingernails found a hold in the wood, and she managed to drag herself up off the floor and into a standing position.

She stood there for a long minute, testing the waters. Her breathing was heavier than she would have liked, and every few seconds her knees trembled from the effort of staying upright, but at least she was standing. Carefully, she took a few steps forward. No passing out – that was good. She continued, her hips falling into a cautious rhythm as she made her way back to the kitchen and dining area. Once there, she continued walking, all the way to the back wall. Through a small doorway, the kitchen fed into a library and parlor. She scanned the room – tall, shiny red bookshelves filled with title-less volumes, painted every color of the rainbow. A delicate pink chandelier hanging overhead cast light on the circles of blue felt that passed for rugs, and the asparagus-green leather couch. The couch abutted a yellow wall, hung with a large framed still life of fruit. How quaint.

There were no stairs.

She reversed back through the kitchen and retraced her steps further down the hall, past the front door. This was where she had last seen Jenny disappear. The end of the hallway yawned in front of her like a gaping black mouth.

_Let's see if it has any teeth. _She thought wryly as she ventured into the blackness. Abbie let her hand trail against the wall for balance as she moved forward. Still, it didn't stop her from nearly running face-first into a door. She fumbled for the knob and twisted it. Locked tight.

"Hello?" She knocked once – no answer. Staggering blindly to the left, she nearly toppled over when her calf ran into an upraised step. Once she'd found her balance she crouched down, spreading her hands over one step, then two. She'd found the stairs.

Abbie clumsily raced up the wooden steps in the dark, almost falling over herself in anticipation. At the top of the staircase, she reached out with her hands until she found the knob to a single door. It turned.

Blinking, Abbie stepped into the attic. The space was not very large, and extremely bare – not a stick of furniture, nor a box, or even an old bike had been stored up here. It made sense, she supposed – this being a dollhouse, there really wasn't much need for an attic. She was only able to see anything because of the faint light coming through three arched windows at the far end of the space. The wood paneling beneath her feet had no footprints but hers, and the dust settled on it had to be at least a centimeter thick. Using the scarce light, she scanned the room. No exits. Her heart immediately started pumping double-time.

Stubbornly refusing to accept what her eyes told her was true – that she was truly and absolutely trapped here – she walked along the walls, finishing at one and immediately crossing to the other; pressing against them and feeling for any locks of knobs. Her short, fruitless trip ended at the windows. She meticulously ran her hands over and underneath the frames, painted a rosy pink like every other window in the house, feeling for locks. There were none. The walls encased the glass seamlessly, like perfect plastic.

Abbie shoved against the glass, hoping that it might pop out or give. Nothing. She immediately progressed to hitting it with her fist. Her reflection in the window didn't flinch once; it didn't even tremble when her fist made impact.

Shaking and sweating, her pulse a runaway train in her heavy head, Abbie slowly lowered herself to her knees in front of the windows.

Looking up through the glass, she noticed something that she hadn't before. It wasn't a large moon that cast its light on this house. It was a cluster bright stars shining above her. The largest and brightest of these rested high beyond the trees that shrouded the dollhouse. Yet its silver tendrils reached through the intersecting branches and lit her face like the sun.

Even in purgatory, the stars managed to shine. Abbie couldn't believe she'd never noticed.

* * *

><p>Ichabod could feel his sanity deserting him as the inevitable approached. He thought of his father, the man whom he had never been allowed the chance to reconcile with. <em>What would he think of me now?<em> He wondered. Would he pity him? Would he embrace him? Crane choked on a shuddering breath, weakly coughing. He knew, without pause, that he was about to find out.

His vision fractured, the darkness cracking and creating room for tiny pinpricks of light to shine through. The dots scattered sporadically around, some forming shapes and others circling in a slow revolution in the otherwise black sky.

_Stars. _He realized softly._  
><em>

_May they light my way home..._

**Hey y'all! SOOOO sorry about this chapter - I wrote it really fast, so it's pretty sloppy. Here I am just setting the stage for the rest of the story, and the action picks up again next chapter! Thanks for reading!**


	9. Serrated

Jenny raced back to the clearing where the GPS app had last located Abbie's cell phone. Lucky for her, Abbie's truck had a shovel resting in the backseat. Unlucky for her sister, Jenny had been forced to break the back window of her jeep in order to get to it.

_I hope she doesn't expect me to pay for that. _She thought to herself as she jogged between the trees, taking care to ease up on her right foot. The joint was aching like a mother, and liquid shots of pain throbbed all the way up to her kneecap every time she put weight on it.

Jenny slowed her pace as she approached, so that she could carefully step over the network of gnarled, protruding roots that spotted the ground. Their dirt-encrusted heads encircled each of the pale, leafless trees that filled the space like marble statues. Each protrusion practically begged the opportunity to sprain her good ankle.

_Not today, boys. _She thought as she stepped over a particularly large clump. She stopped and hefted the shovel off of her shoulder, surveying the patch of overturned earth that marked Abbie's cell phone location like an 'X'. She worried the shovel blade with her fingers as she contemplated where to begin digging, quickly settling on the middle of the pile. She viciously plunged the blade into the loose dirt.

She wouldn't bother digging, except that the earth here had obviously been disturbed – and not long ago, either. She estimated less than a day. And honestly, what were the chances of someone digging in the _very spot _where she's located Abbie's phone? The coordinates were exact; it couldn't be mere coincidence. The phone – and maybe more of her sister's belongings (like, say, the map to purgatory) – had to be buried here. They just had to be.

* * *

><p>Crane unclosed his eyes the smallest amount when he felt a slight tremor pulse through wood of the coffin. He could feel the panels vibrate beneath him in a steady rhythm. <em>Pulse…rest…pulse…rest… <em>He wished he could put a hand over his heart to assure that what he felt wasn't the tired organ beating its way out of his chest.

As he stared, transfixed, the beautiful stars swirling in the sky above him curled outwards at the edges, growing progressively larger until each was a gaping white mouth grinning down at him. The tremors grew stronger and faster, shaking the stars apart. Ichabod was vaguely surprised when the night sky finally crumbled completely; chunks of it raining down on his face and clothing. He tasted dirt in his mouth and smelled sweet, fresh air as a blinding light peeked through the slits in the coffin lid. Sucking in the air like water, Ichabod suddenly realized what was happening.

"Oh god…" A voice, directly above him. The tenor was low and soft, remarkably similar to Abbie's. But something was different.

"_Help!" _Crane bellowed, before gasping in another breath and thrashing against the roots. "_HELP_!"

* * *

><p>When she got her first glimpse of the blanched wooden panels peeking up through the clumps of coppery red and woodsy brown soil, Jenny felt exhilarated. She'd been right - there <em>was<em> something buried here.

This shred of validated hope clung to her like a warm blanket. It heated her blood and quickened her movements as she used the shovel head to scrape away at the walls of the hole, broadening the space in order to reveal the dimensions of the box. The blade split the earth with a vengeance, pulling out the largest chunks of packed mud and clay. It was only after she'd dislodged a particularly large piece of packed earth that Jenny recognized the box's emerging form.

A coffin. She was digging up a coffin.

Jenny nearly dropped the shovel as every tendon from her bare, bronzed shoulders to the smallest muscles of her fingers simultaneously locked up, then released in a single spasm. Shock was probably the best term to describe her reaction. She was shocked – enough to stop digging for a fraction of a moment.

All of the grim horrors that the innocent-looking compartment could hold immediately began to swirl sickeningly in her mind. Her sister – dead. Ichabod Crane – dead.

She was surprised to discover that she felt dizzy. Sick.

"Oh god…" She barely registered her own voice in her ears when, beneath her, the box began _moving. _Shaking uncontrollably, with such a sudden strength that she had to cling to the vacillating edge of the pit for balance.

_"Help!" _

The hoarse, male voice came from directly below her feet. The coffin rattled again.

_"HELP!" _

_Shit! _She snapped to attention and began clawing the rest of the dirt away from the edges of the box as she recognized the desperate voice.

"Crane!"

As Jenny cleared away the moist dirt with her fingers, her palm scraped against something sharp poking up from the lid – a rusty nail. Both top corners of the box were nailed shut. She felt the blood drain from her face as the facts fully sunk in. Crane had been buried alive.

But what about her sister? _What had happened to her_?

Jenny yanked at the nails with her fingers, but they were both imbedded tight in the wood. She succeeded only in leaving jagged cuts on both of her index and middle fingers.

Snatching up the shovel, she jammed the blade under the upper right corner of the lid and attempted to pry it open.

"Miss Mills!" She heard Crane shout from inside. He was so close it was like he was yelling the words straight in her ear.

"I know, I know!" She barked as she heaved against the lid. "Just gimme a sec!"

The lid jumped up towards her like a snake as suddenly, with a wrenching crack, both nails pried loose and the box heaved open.

The tension in the shovel handle vanished so suddenly that Jenny nearly fell on top of Ichabod. As the blade shot up and the handle went down, like a seesaw, she barely managed to catch herself on a thick root protruding from the wall of the pit. As she swung dangerously close to the sharp, split-wood edge of the coffin, she got a look at Crane.

Her first thought was that he looked alright. That is, she couldn't see any splotches of blood on his skin or clothes. That, for her, constituted "alright". He was breathing – hard. She could hear him gasping around his words as he spoke.

"Cut these. Quickly." He strained forwards, drawing her attention to rows and rows of splotched, dirty brown rope binding him tightly from his shoulders, all the way down to his leather boots. The criss-crossed, muted brown bindings barely stood out from the rest of his dirtied clothing – she wasn't sure she'd have noticed them if he hadn't pointed them out. Leaning closer, she saw that the cords were not made of twine or thread, but where stiffer and more rotund; each crusted almost completely in earth.

"Oh my god."

These were _roots – _not so very different from the one she was gripping for balance. She dropped her hand immediately and wiped her palm against her jeans.

She glanced from the roots to his face, completely baffled. "Where's Abbie?"

"I will explain everything." He panted, and struggled against the bindings. "But for now, I have spent a greater interval than any man should being buried alive. Please– "

He looked down pointedly. Jenny acknowledged his problem, but refused to follow his gaze. Instead, she leveled a hard look at his face.

"She better be alright." She spoke the words as a command.

She saw him flinch, but he returned her stare and nodded – firmly. Blue eyes cold and serious – ever the noble soldier.

Jenny exhaled in relief and rubbed her temple, where a wicked headache was blossoming. Until further explanation was provided, she could trust Crane that her sister was okay.

Refocusing, she hefted the shovel and surveyed the vice-tight knots, eyes flashing up and down, scanning for any weak spots; breaks in the lines. She peeked down at the shovel blade. It was filed to a thin edge, but was it really sharp enough to cut through natural fibers? She tossed it to the side of the pit. It landed on the carpet of rotting leaves and glanced off of a root with a muted twang.

"You're lucky I jacked Abbie's spare on the way here." She muttered as she carefully wedged her feet on either side of Crane's his torso and crouched over him in the coffin.

He twisted against the ties, eyes moving around distractedly. "Her what?"

With a grin that was much more confident than she felt, Jenny flipped a small metallic object out of the back pocket of her jeans.

"Pocket knife." She replied. The polished steel case flashed in the midday sun that shone through the trees in rash-like patches. She unsheathed the serrated blade and bent over the nearest root – a relatively thick sucker wrapped suffocatingly taught around his shoulders – and began sawing.

"Yes I feel extremely lucky." Crane quipped sardonically, and Jenny heard him hiss in pain when the first root snapped. _That would be his circulation returning_. _Ouch_.

Jenny glanced up at him.

"Only twenty more to go." She deadpanned as she worked her blade between his ancient military coat and the next root.

She was able to take a close look at his appearance now that he was less than a foot away from her. He was unusually pale, even for him. A glistening sheen of sweat covered his face, and sprinkles of dirt stuck to his cheeks. His dark brown hair was knotted and splayed everywhere – his bangs plastered to the perspiration on his brow. His pale blue eyes were trained on the sky, and he seemed to be concentrating very hard on drawing in another deep breath.

"Your lips are blue." Was all she said.

"Just hurry. Please." Crane spoke politely, but through his teeth. He squeezed his eyes shut as he spoke, and he looked like he was holding back from hurling. Jenny widened her eyes in surprise, but didn't comment.

_Snap! Snap! Snap! _Three smaller roots gave to her blade. Jenny saw him grimace.

There was little other sound as she worked, except for the occasional cawing of a crow overhead, and the sound of the roots snapping one by one. Crane's breathing was heavier than hers, eclipsing most other noise. It subtly urged her to work faster, and her grip on the pocket knife tightened as she sawed frantically.

His breathing didn't slow, despite the quick pace.

She surprised herself by sincerely hoping that he would be okay. She couldn't imagine how Abbie would take it if –

_Don't go there. _She stopped herself. Crane was going to be fine, and her sister was going to be _fine_. Everything would be alright.

"There."

With a satisfied tug, she ripped the knife through the final tendril around his boots. In less than a second, Crane was in motion, swatting the cut branches off of his clothes like bugs and wiggling his torso out from between her feet. The sudden movement took Jenny by surprise and she scrambled to perch her feet on the coffin's solid wooden edge, out of reach of his long legs.

The phrase _like a bullet from a gun_ came to mind as he bolted to his feet and climbed from the muddy grave in a single tall step. It was like he couldn't get out fast enough.

He stood as soon as he was able and quickly paced a few steps away, like he needed to put some distance between himself and the void. The fingers of both hands twitched restlessly at his sides, and Jenny quirked an eyebrow.

Without turning around, he straightened his coat and retied the leather strap around his hair. As he did this Jenny could hear, miraculously, his breathing begin to return to normal. She rolled her eyes and heaved herself up so that she was sitting on the edge of the pit, legs dangling.

"Don't thank me all at once." She jibed.

"Thank you." He turned, his eyes only for her and not the hole she was sitting in. His expression was sincere, and a tiny bit apologetic.

"Thank you."

He glanced at the ground, then the sky contemplatively.

"It's strange." He began. "I was so certain…," he swallowed. "…that I was going to die here. And then you came, and I realized that I might survive, and I…," He looked down, shaking his head incredulously as he caught his breath. "I could not fathom spending another second in that damned box, not whilst I still drew breath."

"Forgive me, Miss Mills." He continued. "And again, thank you."

Jenny blew a lungful out air out between her lips, like a horse. She felt plenty incredulous, herself.

"_That_…," She gestured to the coffin, and then to where he stood, some feet away. "Totally understandable. I get it, really. Wanting to escape."

_Boy, did she get it._

"Do you have Abbie's phone?" She asked suddenly.

"Ah, yes." He reached into the inside of his jacket and withdrew the slim, heather gray smart phone.

Jenny exhaled and looked down, exasperated. "Figures why no one picked up."

"Yes, well, my hands were _tied_, as it were." He quipped testily. She stared at him mutely, one eyebrow raised. Did Abbie honestly have to deal with _this_ all the time?

"She…lent it to me." He conceded finally. "For a transitory duration only."

"Hm." She raised her eyebrows and nodded to herself. It did sound like such classic Abbie. Jenny had called it weeks ago, and it was just as true now as it had been then – her no-nonsense, isolationist older sister had gone totally soft in all matters "Crane".

She bounced out of the pit and rose to her feet, swatting the worst of the mud off of the seat of her jeans. Crane straightened and clasped his hands behind his back, regarding her seriously.

"Are you alright?" He asked suddenly, his eyes zeroing in on the stitches at her forehead. Absently, Jenny brought her hand up to cover the wound.

"Yeah. Compliments of the Horseman of Death." She replied bitterly. Ichabod's brow furrowed, clearly in want of a more specific explanation, so she continued.

"I was coming to warn you guys about Henry yesterday…," It didn't escape her that Crane stiffened at the name. "…when he jumped in front of my car. Shot through my windshield, blew out my front tire – I'm lucky that I escaped with just _this._" She gestured at the stitches.

"My god." Crane uttered.

Jenny moved to place her hands on her hips, disregarding the chilled breeze that cooled the perspiration on her skin to freezing. The wan afternoon sunlight provided no warmth against the low temperatures.

"Corbin suspected that the abandoned church outside of town had some connection to the horseman of war."

Ichabod nodded and she continued.

"I drove up there yesterday afternoon and…," she cleared her throat "…let myself in."

"And by that phrase, I assume you're referring to you and your sister's proficiency at lock-picking."

Jenny was unable to resist flashing a cheshire cat grin.

"You assume correctly. Anyways, I looked around, but couldn't find anything. Then as I was about to leave, I found the church's welcome sign. St. Henry's Parrish. _The saint's name is a sign_, right?"

Ichabod nodded again, this time more resignedly.

"So it's true?" She pressed. "Henry Parrish – the 60-something, does crossword puzzles, _knits-his-own-scarves_ Henry Parrish is _the_ Horseman of War?"

"The genuine article." He agreed solemnly. "Resurrected by Moloch in order to mitigate the coming apocalypse, and to engender the destruction of humanity as we know it."

"Damn…" Jenny breathed.

Crane raised an eyebrow in silent agreement as he studied the leaves on the ground. He looked up again before adding, quietly, "He is also…my son."

There was a beat of silence as he gave her time to absorb this.

"Your…_what?_" Jenny all but shouted, completely distracted by the single, groundbreaking admission. _No way._

"Your _son _is the Horseman of War." The words came out in sharp staccato, each syllable like a pointed blade, as she stepped closer.

Ichabod shifted uncomfortably.

"Yes. He revealed himself to Katrina and I as soon as we were alone with him yesterday."

"He _died._" Jenny interrupted. Abbie had filled her in on the rash actions of Katrina's coven weeks ago.

"_Wait._" She held up a hand before he could speak, as something suddenly occurred to her. "What do you mean _you and Katrina were alone with him_?"

Crane seemed to go completely still. Jenny stepped closer to him.

"Where's Katrina?" Her tone was clipped.

"The Horseman of War – Henry – gave her up to the Horseman of Death as his promised prize." He snarled the last few words, his frustration apparent.

"He then bound me in _this_…," He stabbed a finger towards the pit. "His unmarked grave."

He closed his eyes and let out a tired breath between his clenched teeth before reopening them.

"My wife was borne away by the Horseman of Death, I know not where." He glanced briefly around the clearing. "Daylight being his weakness, there's no telling where they could be."

Jenny felt her hands begin to shake.

"But you know where Abbie is, right?" She asked tightly.

Ichabod raised his eyes to her face, his expression suddenly repentant. She saw his jaw clench again, and would have had to be blind to miss the agony that filled his eyes.

"Where is she?" She demanded in a voice that didn't sound like her own.

"Alive." He managed.

"I know." She cut him off. "We've covered that. _Alive_ _where_?"

Both of Crane's hands clenched into fists at his sides, then released. His left index finger twitched once, and he maintained eye contact with her.

_Brave man._

"Katrina was needed to complete the binding spell on the horseman's grave site, as you know." He spoke gently, each word weighted with care.

"In order to remove her from purgatory without _disastrous_ repercussion, another willing soul was required to take her place…,"

Jenny saw his mouth moving, forming more words after that – entire sentences, even. But his voice fell to nothing but a muted hum in her ears. Her jaw snapped shut, and her vision went red as the pieces instantly fell together.

She was_ there_.

He'd left her_._

He and his witch wife.

She was there _now_.

_Her sister…!_

The roaring in her ears reached a deafening pitch, like the ringing of artillery shells.

She wasn't sure how it happened, but in a second she had moved from a few feet away to directly in front of him. Her forehead was level with his chin – standing on tiptoe, they would be at eye level.

She was three and three-quarter inches taller than her sister. And that…_that_ …was her last coherent thought before her right hand clenched into a fist.

She hit him. _Hard._ Right on the left edge of his jaw. She threw herself into the punch, with such enthusiasm that the kinetic energy nearly sent her hurtling to the ground after it.

"She's the _second witness_, dammit!" She shouted as she managed to regain her equilibrium and circumvent to the left.

The blood pumped through her right temple, straining against the stitching with every pulse. The forest suddenly reeled, and she braced her hands on her knees to steady herself.

When her vision cleared, she saw Crane leaning against a tree a few steps away, holding his jaw and breathing hard. He was watching her, eyes dark and quiet. For once he didn't have anything to say.

He didn't look angry, or even remotely surprised by her reaction. He looked like he was bracing himself for another hit.

Jenny realized belatedly that she was gasping, too, and the icy air was burning her throat raw with each fast breath. The insides of her nostrils stung.

"Do you even realize what this means?" She lashed out as soon as she could. "This is what Moloch wanted all along. He wants to kill the two witnesses, and you let her run straight to him!"

Crane lowered his hand from his jaw. Amazement overshadowed acceptance on his face.

"_Let her_?" He echoed.

Jenny threw her hands up. "Of course it was _her idea_ to stay. It's not like you could have forced her." She shot him a look that said "_obviously_."

"You know her character very well." Crane stammered, looking a little awed. Jenny couldn't have cared less about his admiration. Her blood boiled when she thought of Abbie – of _course _she would pull something like this. The girl who had spent her life dodging accountability had now become the martyr, nailing herself to the stake for the good of _Ichabod_ _Crane_ and his AWOL wife…

"Ergh…" She groaned and folded her hands behind her head, turning and pacing away in aggravation.

"She told me that she wanted to face Moloch herself, but I never thought that she'd actually _go through with it_." She muttered to a pale, scraggly tree. Her older sister was always more cautious and careful than this. She had never been keen on revenge missions like Jenny, and had _never_ let her emotions overrule logic.

Jenny remembered her words to her sister – spoken weeks ago, when Ichabod had gone mysteriously missing. _"You really care about this guy, don't you?"_

The world felt upside-down; out of balance as she realized that, this time, she was _not_ the one who'd screwed up. She was _not_ the sister who had acted rashly, trusted naively, or "followed her heart" into anything.

This time, she was the sister planning the defensive strategy – how to rescue Abbie as soon as possible, and with the least amount of collateral damage. The role-reversal was dizzyingly blunt.

"Yes, it was her suggestion that she remain whilst Katrina and I escaped." Crane spoke to her back, pulling her from her thoughts. Jenny turned, and saw that his expression was twisted in agony. His left index finger and thumb pinched the bridge of his nose and his eyes were squeezed shut.

"But she was afraid." The words came out as a groan. "She was afraid, and I chose not to see it."

"Damn right she was afraid." Jenny responded, incredulous. "She only started believing any of this a few months ago, and let me tell you, it takes a lot longer to overcome a lifetime of fear – no matter _what_ Abbie says."

She saw him flinch, as if he were remembering something painful.

"We were only supposed to be separated," Ichabod continued tightly, "until Katrina could invoke the binding spell upon the horseman's grave. Then we _fully_ _intended_ to return to purgatory, find Lieutenant Mills, and make the exchange."

"But then _Death_ showed up and stole your girl, and your son _buried _you." Jenny hissed.

Crane's eyes flew open and he dropped his hand.

"Precisely." He snapped.

_Wow, this guy's more mercurial than a mood ring. _Jenny thought to herself. How _did _her sister put up with him?

After a pause, Crane stepped forward to meet her. His blue eyes seared like those of a burning man, and Jenny instinctively stepped back.

"If there was anything within my power that could be done to retrieve Abbie, without unleashing purgatory upon the earth, don't think for a _second _that I would not–"

"Good." She interrupted him. "Because there is something that you can do."

**Hey y'all! SOooooooOOOOOoooooo sorry that this chapter is sloppy - I'm not too good at getting the characters' voices right all of the time. Eek! Anyways, I hope you enjoy! :)**


	10. Drowning

"No." Crane resolutely shook his head. "Absolutely not."

"Are you kidding me right now?" Jenny leaned on her good leg and raised both eyebrows in disbelief. "It's the only course of action that we have!"

"If I were to bring you to the black gates myself in exchange for your sister, I can tell you with absolute certainty that she would not come willingly."

Ichabod leaned forward as he spoke, clearly incensed. "The _last_ thing in this world that she would desire would be _you_ in harm's way."

Jenny snorted and held up a hand. "I can take care of myself."

"I am aware, as is Miss Mills, that you can." Ichabod agreed immediately. "But…" He continued, entreating, "…in the case of the lieutenant, the heart is not often so easily reasoned with."

Jenny scowled. He had her there, and they both knew it.

"Your sister loves you." He added after a pause.

"Then screw her!" Jenny suddenly lashed out. She kicked viciously at the ground and raked long-nailed fingers through her riotous curls. It felt like her sister's impregnable pride was, even now, trying to rule her decisions from across the realms of the afterlife. That, and a certain person's _very_ inconvenient sense of honor. Damn Ichabod Crane. He knew Abbie too well for either of their own good.

Well, she'd had enough of this honorable shit. I mean, really – it didn't matter if she and Ichabod had to drag Abbie out of purgatory by her _hair_. There was a higher cause at hand, and the greater danger of the horseman loomed with the waning sun. Both of the two witnesses were needed _here_ – amongst the living – if they wanted even a shot at taking him down. Those were the facts.

"Look." Jenny addressed him again. "We both know that _you_ can't take her place because you're also a witness."

"And it would seem that we are now _both_ needed." Ichabod commented, quietly affirming her thoughts on the matter.

She pointed to herself. "But I'm not important to him, get it? Show me the way to purgatory, and I can make the switch myself. Then you and Abbie can go search for Katrina, and take this fucker down."

Crane seemed momentarily confused by her choice of words, but quickly countered her argument nonetheless.

"If I bring you to substitute for your sister's soul," he emphasized, "it will not matter who is a witness and who is not. She will _not_ allow you to remain in her stead." He straightened his spine and stared rigidly down at her. "Nor, for that matter, will I."

Jenny craned her neck up at him. Was this guy for real? Arguing with him was beginning to feel creepily like she was arguing with Abbie. She snapped her teeth together and ground the molars.

"Huh." She offered after a moment. "You really do know my sister, don't you?"

"Sometimes." Crane's blue eyes glinted with stark honesty. "She is, and always will be, the dearest and truest friend that I've ever had the good fortune of knowing."

_Whoa…_

Jenny eyed him quizzically. The fondness, as well as the conviction in his words were impossible to miss.

_This guy's in deep._

"Do not mistake my reluctance for opposition to freeing the lieutenant from purgatory." He added after a pause. His voice rang with quiet determination as he spoke.

"I promised that I would return for her, and I intend to keep my word. But we cannot simply remove her from that hell – not without ripping the very seams of reality apart."

Even as he said the words, the fingers of Crane's right hand drummed impatiently against his military coat, and after a second's pause he paced away from her. The agitation rolled off of him in waves.

"Well, what if there was a way to do it _without_ ripping reality apart?" Jenny tried desperately.

Ichabod spun. "Without a witch?" The sentence sounded almost like he was being sarcastic.

Before he could get a full jab in, she interrupted him with another question.

"Have you ever heard of 'the Holy Bridge'?"

Ichabod's fingers froze where they were grasping his chin. "P–" he began, then stopped abruptly, before trying again. "Pardon me?"

Suddenly, his eyes filled with recognition. That recognition immediately kindled with determination into something very much approaching hope. He dropped his hands, his gaze locked on hers, and he immediately followed his first question with, "… The _what_?"

* * *

><p>Abbie was dreaming. She knew it, but she didn't care. Unconsciousness had been her constant companion in purgatory thus far, and for once, she was <em>not<em> complaining. The blissful ignorance of dreams was a more-than-welcome repose from the inescapable horror that was her current reality. Since she couldn't _help_ herself – God knew, she'd tried – the least she could do was try to _enjoy_ herself. And this dream was enjoyable.

She was warm. That, in itself, was a luxury. Purgatory weather tended to lean towards the ice cold and dark. Here, sunlight and shadow danced above her. She could see the silhouettes of both as they swayed beneath her closed eyelids, to the soft rhythm of a tropical breeze. Neither the wind nor the spots of shade did anything to affect the baking heat that warmed her to the bone.

A salty breath of air tucked her overgrown bangs behind her ear. Keeping her eyes closed, she shifted her head slightly to the left. She instantly felt the ground sink and adjust beneath her scalp, like soft, pliable clay. Curious, she tremulously reached out – and sunk her fingers into fine, smooth sand. The gentle lapping of waves whispered in the distance, and she reluctantly cracked an eye open. She was lying, fully dressed except for her shoes, on a pale beach. A palm tree shivered in the breeze a few yards to her right, and a frothy ocean shore swished calmly over the sand a couple of yards from her toes. A cloudless blue horizon stretched endlessly in front of her, marred only by the white-hot sun blazing directly overhead.

It was paradise, plain and simple. The view was the stuff of touristy postcards and national geographic magazines, and she could vaguely recall seeing a similar desktop wallpaper on her laptop; though even that hadn't looked _half_ this inviting. God, and that _water_. It was so blue, it took her breath away. Made her think of every travel magazine she'd ever opened, and made her nostalgic and excited all at once.

The baking heat was becoming stifling; it reflected off of the perfectly smooth granules of sand and encircled her like an oven the longer she lay where she was.

Rising up to a sitting position, Abbie struggled with her tight, nylon winter top. The fabric stuck to her back and shoulders with sweat, forcing her to awkwardly wriggle out of it. Beneath her shirt was a simple black tank, which she kept on. She struggled even more so with her incredibly tight skinny jeans, managing to cuff them twice at her ankles before they refused to budge farther up her calf. She grunted in frustration. Why on earth had she dressed for winter when coming to the beach?

"Nice lookin' out, Mills." she panted to herself – already out of breath from that little exertion.

She stared broodingly at her jeans and swiped a bead of sweat off of her left temple. A fly buzzed near her ear and she swatted at it, annoyed that the paradise her mind had obviously invented to keep her sane was quickly beginning to lose its charm. The heat was so intense, it was getting even harder to breathe. She tried to swallow, but her dry mouth wasn't having it.

_I need to go to the water._

The soft, internal voice was so gentle and unexpected, that she wasn't sure for a second whether it was hers. _I need to go to the water…_ She thought silently to herself, testing the pitch. Yep, that was her alright. Her subconscious must also be sweating itself to death. Compulsively trying (and failing) to swallow again, she couldn't help but agree with it.

Her eyes shifted to the cool, tropical blue waves that sloshed and slithered along the shoreline. The tide was coming in, and shiny black and brown shells glistened pleasingly as the waves swept in and out, just a few small feet from her petite, painted toenails. Like a woman in a trance, Abbie slowly gained her feet – her gaze never leaving the water. She took a step, staggered, righted herself, then took another. The surrealism of the impeccable dreamscape seemed to be screwing with her equilibrium. The sand seemed to swing and lurch lazily beneath her feet, like a ship on calm waters. She had to focus to keep from falling face-first into the foam.

Finally, four faltering steps later, Abbie managed to reach a place where the water was thigh-deep. When she attempted one more step, her knees unexpectedly buckled beneath her, and she only _just_ managed to twist around so that she landed on her back rather than pitching forward. The current caught her and carried her, and she let it. The temperature was cool but not freezing, and the rush of water felt so good on her hot skin that she wanted nothing more than to float forever. Every ounce of fight seemed to drain out of her, and there was nothing but the motion of the dark blue water to keep her from drifting down beneath the surface.

As she floated, face up on the waves, she slowly became aware of the current becoming gentler and gentler; even faltering in some places. The waves that had buoyed her easily at first were fast becoming fewer and farther between. During a particularly long stretch of stillness, her body sank suddenly up to her chin, before a swish of the current raised her up again. This happened again moments later, only this time she sank up to the bridge of her nose before she was brought, sputtering, back to the surface. Faint strains of alarm slowly began to penetrate the numb calm that swaddled Abbie's brain. She needed to kick, she realized dimly. She needed to move her arms and legs, or she was going to drown. She tried to focus through the haze – to move something; _anything_. Her limbs refused to respond to her commands. The current dipped again, and she was dunked up to her hairline. After what felt like an eternity, she finally resurfaced, coughing and shaking violently. Genuine panic sliced through the drugging calm and into her chest like a knife. She was paralyzed; at the mercy of the current. Adrenaline shot through her veins with a vengeance, but her atrophied muscles gave the chemical no outlet for release. She sucked in gulps of air as she began to sink, bobbing up only scant inches for air before being dragged lower. The current that had once kept her afloat now just listlessly spun her in the water; barely enough to hold her up. She was drowning. The darkness was closing in.

She sucked in a huge breath seconds before her head dropped beneath the surface. Instead of being pushed up, the current dropped her. As if weights were attached to her feet, she sank quickly. Nearly suffocating with fear, Abbie glanced at her splayed limbs – begging them to move. Nothing. The world went black and cold. So very, very cold. Though she knew it was pointless, Abbie screamed.

* * *

><p>By slow, sluggish degrees, Abbie became aware of a deep, droning sound echoing in her ears. The noise would drop to a low tenor and soften nearly to the point of silence, before suddenly rising to a high-pitched keening, like some kind of wounded animal. As she strained to hear, the noise stopped, then abruptly started up again. Then it hit her. <em>Oh. <em>The noise was _her_.

On some level she became aware of horrible, anguished groans pouring out of her. These were accented by fearful whimpers, like those of a terrified child. Hard solid wood was smashed against her left cheek, and her lower back was on fire – suggesting that she had been slumped over in an uncomfortable position for a long time. Her left arm was crushed awkwardly beneath her stomach, but the fingers of her free hand twitched anxiously. She didn't know where she was, and her drowning fear still clawed at her, making her thoughts nearly incoherent. A long, low moan erupted from her again, and she could hear her lungs whining at the effort to inhale after the sound had run out.

"_Abbie_!"

Far off, somewhere beyond her realm, she heard a young woman's voice screech her name. She was too far gone to recognize the speaker, and the name soon faded. It was replaced, however, by the sound of heavy boots pounding on a wooden floor. Stairs, maybe? The wooden panels resting beneath her numb cheek vibrated lightly with every loud step.

"Lieutenant!"

This time it was a man's voice – much closer to her than the last. The tone rang with authority, and the volume of the call implied some kind of desperate urgency. At the sound, Abbie felt her heart begin to thud fast and heavy against her ribs. A door creaked open. The heavy steps faltered to a stop, then picked up again, double-time. The floor now jarred against her skull with each step, and the panic nearly choked her as the footsteps seemed to immediately zone in on her location. She whimpered helplessly when they stopped, mere inches from her. If she'd been able to, she might have curled up tightly to avoid being spotted. But she guessed it was too late for that now. She began to shake as she waited for something – anything – to happen.

"Abigail." The voice was softer; gentler. And impeccably familiar.

A cold, long-fingered hand cupped her jaw; Abbie recognized the action immediately as someone feeling for a pulse. At the exquisitely tender touch, she exhaled shakily, so filled with relief that she felt almost sick. Clearly this person didn't mean to hurt her just yet. As she inhaled a deeply, she caught the scents of musty leather, soil, and wool. Her eyelids strained to open. Surely it wasn't…

"Easy, now."

Ichabod Crane's voice spoke quietly near her ear, and she felt his hands on her shoulders, slowly dragging her up into a sitting position. She willed her muscles to hold her up, and surprisingly, they cooperated. She felt him adjust so that he was crouched beneath her right arm.

"On your feet, soldier." He urged, and after wrapping his other arm around her waist, hauled them both to their feet. As she struggled to find her legs, Abbie suddenly found her lips instead.

"Crane…" She mumbled, and managed to force her lids apart. Blearily she registered his pale features, inches from her own, as well as his arm supporting her. She glanced around, seeing the attic of her childhood dollhouse all around them. She swiveled her head back to him. Her wobbly knees straightened to hold her weight, and she stiffened as grim reality set in.

"You're not here." She muttered, her voice gathering power. "This is just another dream." Through now-clear eyes, she saw his concern give way to confusion, then light amusement.

"And yet, you don't appear very pleased to see me." He made a show of looking offended. "Dream or no, I should have thought us closer than that."

When she only stared at him in confusion, he raised an eyebrow expectantly.

"Lieutenant?"

His gaze traveled from her bugging eyes to her slack jaw, and then back, his brow furrowing in concern.

"I don't recall you being nearly this dense in the land of the living, Miss Mills."

That finally broke her, and Abbie exhaled in a shaky laugh. Incredulous, she shook her head in disbelief.

"You can't be here, Crane. There's no way."

At her words, his expression turned worried, while his eyes seemed to soften infinitesimally.

"Never mind that." He spoke quietly, measuring each word carefully, like he was speaking to a small child. He straightened, and adjusted her arm so that it was pulled more firmly across his shoulders. "Right now, I simply need you to walk. Can you do that for me?"

Abbie was suddenly confused. _Walk?_ He wanted her to walk?

She reared back, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Where?"

He looked like he was about to respond, when the loud banging of the attic door suddenly broke the silence. Both of their heads turned towards the sharp noise, and Abbie's eyes widened as her sister burst into the room.

"I heard voices." Jenny panted, looking at them both. She braced a hand on her hip as the rickety wooden door swung shut behind her with a weak groan.

Abbie only stared at her younger sister in shock, before whipping her head around to gape at Crane. He returned her stare, and she could see every emotion that passed across her face reflected starkly in his eyes. Every ounce of alarm, confusion, panic, and, ultimately, anger that rose erratically to the surface, as her conscious mind struggled to accept that what was happening was _not_ a hallucination, but very, very _real_.

Her baby sister was in purgatory.

Abbie felt all of the blood drain from her face and, oddly, she began to shake. Crane watched her with a measured, almost wary expression. However, his long fingers strongly gripping her elbows communicated his concern loudly.

"No." Abbie tried to say. Her voice came out as little more than a whistle of air. She tried again, this time managing a greater volume.

"No, no, no, no, no…" She shook her head, for a moment completely beyond words.

"Lieutenant…"

"_You brought her here?_" Abbie rasped in horrified disbelief. How could he be so stupid? So irresponsible? It was bad enough that _one _of them was trapped in purgatory, but _now_…

Crane exhaled in exasperation, but his gaze remained steady.

"There was no time–"

"I brought _myself _here." Jenny all but shouted from behind her. Her tone was sharp enough to cut ice. Abbie turned back to face her sister, leaning as far away from Ichabod as she could, while still keeping her hand braced on his outstretched arm. It stung her pride not being able stand alone, but she figured it would scar it for life if she collapsed in front of them.

"_Excuse me?_" She leveled a hard look at Jenny, eyebrows raised; daring her to repeat herself.

Jenny glared back at her for a moment, before suddenly rushing forward. Before Abbie knew it, Jenny had caught her in a fierce hug, pulling her away from Crane's support completely.

"Geez, I thought I'd really lost you this time."

The words were muffled against Abbie's jacket collar, but she could hear Jenny's voice crack at the end of them. Abbie hugged her back tightly, and gave her wild curls a few gentle strokes as tears pooled in her own eyes.

"I thought I'd lost you too, for a minute there." She whispered thickly.

They both pulled away awkwardly after a few seconds, but Jenny kept her hands on Abbie's shoulders as she studied her. She sniffed and wiped her nose against the back of one wrist, her eyes never leaving Abbie.

"You look like shit."

**Hey y'all! I hope you liked the small update. Stay tuned for Ch. 11! :) Huzzah!  
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